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The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight is a 2008 superhero crime thriller film directed and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is part of Nolan's Batman film series and a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins. Christian Bale reprises the lead role. The film follows Bruce Wayne/Batman (Bale), District Attorney Harvey Dent/Two-Face (Aaron Eckhart), Assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), and Police Commissioner James Gordon (Gary Oldman) and their struggles and journey in combating the new rising threat of a criminal who goes by the name of the "Joker" (Heath Ledger).


Nolan's inspiration for the film was the Joker's comic book debut in 1940, and the 1996 series The Long Halloween, which retold Two-Face's origin. The Dark Knight was filmed primarily in Chicago, as well as in several other locations in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong. Nolan used an IMAX camera to film some sequences, including the Joker's first appearance in the film. On January 22, 2008, after he had completed filming The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger died from a toxic combination of prescription drugs, leading to intense attention from the press and moviegoing public. Warner Bros. had initially created a viral marketing campaign for The Dark Knight, developing promotional websites and trailers highlighting screen shots of Ledger as the Joker, but after Ledger's death, the studio refocused its promotional campaign.

The film was released on July 16, 2008 in Australia, on July 18, 2008 in North America, and on July 24, 2008 in the United Kingdom. Before its box office debut in North America, record numbers of advance tickets were sold for The Dark Knight. It was greeted with positive reviews upon release,and became only the second film to earn more than $500 million at the North American box office, setting numerous other records in the process. It is also the fourth highest grossing film worldwide, and only the fourth film to earn more than $1 billion, worldwide.The film received numerous awards nominations and two Academy Awards for Best Sound Editing and Best Supporting Actor for Ledger's performance.


The Joker (Heath Ledger)


The Joker (Heath Ledger)

Plot

In Gotham City, the Joker robs a mob bank with his accomplices, whom he tricks into killing one another, ultimately killing the last one himself. While investigating the robbery, Batman and Lieutenant James Gordon contemplate including new district attorney Harvey Dent in their plan to eradicate the mob. However, Batman wonders if Dent can be trusted. Wayne runs into Rachel Dawes and Dent, who are dating, and after talking to Dent, he realizes Dent's sincerity and decides to host a fundraiser for him. Mob bosses Sal Maroni, Gambol, and the Chechen meet with other underworld gangsters to discuss both Batman and Dent, who have been cracking down on the mobster's operations. Lau, a Chinese mafia accountant, informs them that he has hidden their money and fled to Hong Kong in an attempt to preempt Gordon's plan to seize the mobsters' funds and hide from Dent's jurisdiction. The Joker appears and offers to kill Batman for half of the mafia's money, but they flatly refuse and Gambol places a bounty on the Joker's head. Not long after, the Joker kills Gambol and takes control of his men.

In Hong Kong, Batman captures Lau using a skyhook, and delivers him to the Gotham City police, where Lau agrees to testify against the mob. Dent and Gordon arrest the mob, and in retaliation the Joker issues an ultimatum to Gotham: people will die each day until Batman reveals his identity. When Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb and the judge presiding over the mob trials are killed, the public readily blames Batman, prompting Wayne to decide to reveal his identity. Before Bruce can turn himself in, Dent holds a press conference to try and persuade the public not to sell Batman out just because of one terrorist. However the public, though grateful for everything Batman has done for the city, insists that things have now reached a point where Batman must make the sacrifice, so Dent announces that he himself is Batman and is arrested as part of a plan to draw the Joker out of hiding. The Joker attempts to ambush the police convoy carrying Dent, but Batman and Gordon intervene and capture him. In recognition of his actions, Gordon is appointed the new police commissioner.

Later that night, Dent and Dawes disappear. At the police station, Batman interrogates the Joker, who reveals that Dent and Dawes' police escorts were corrupt police and have placed them in warehouses rigged with explosives on opposite sides of the city—far enough apart so that Batman cannot save them both. Batman leaves to save Dawes, while Gordon and the police head after Dent. With the aid of a smuggled bomb, the Joker escapes police custody with Lau. Batman arrives, but finds Dent instead of Dawes. Batman successfully saves Dent, but the ensuing explosion disfigures Dent's face. Gordon arrives at Dawes' location too late, and she perishes when the bomb detonates. Unable to cope with this new level of chaos, Maroni goes to Gordon and offers him the Joker's location. Aboard a cargo ship, the Joker burns Lau to death atop a pile of half the mob's money, and has the Chechen killed before taking control of his men.

Meanwhile, an accountant at Wayne Enterprises, Coleman Reese, finds out Batman's identity and after failing to blackmail the company, decides to go public. However, realizing that he does what he does only because of Batman, the Joker changes his mind about revealing Batman's identity and issues a public ultimatum: either Reese is killed within the hour, or he will blow up a hospital. When attempts on Reese's life are foiled, the Joker goes to the evacuated hospital, disguised as a nurse, and frees Dent from his restraints, convincing him to exact revenge on the people whose corruption led to Dawes' death. Dent begins by flipping a coin to decide if he should kill the Joker, and spares him. The Joker destroys the hospital on his way out, and then escapes with a hijacked bus full of hospital patients.

Out of the hospital, Dent goes on a personal vendetta, confronting Maroni and the corrupt cops one by one and flipping his coin to decide their fates. Now with complete control over the Gotham mob, the Joker announces to the public that anyone left in Gotham at nightfall will be subject to his rule. With the bridges and tunnels out of the city closed due to a warning by the Joker, authorities begin evacuating people by ferry. The Joker has explosives placed on two of the ferries—one ferry with convicts, who were evacuated in an effort to keep the Joker from freeing them, and the other with civilians—telling the passengers the only way to save themselves is to trigger the explosives on the other ferry; otherwise, he will destroy both at midnight. Batman locates the Joker and the hostages he has taken. Realizing the Joker has disguised the hostages as his own men, Batman is forced to attack both Gordon's SWAT team and the Joker's henchmen to save the real hostages.

The Joker's plan to destroy the ferries fails after the passengers on both decide not to destroy each other. Batman finds the Joker, and after a brief fight, is able to subdue him, preventing him from destroying both ferries. When Batman refuses to kill the Joker, the Joker acknowledges that Batman is truly incorruptible, but that Dent was not, and that he has unleashed Dent upon the city. Leaving the Joker for the SWAT team, Batman searches for Dent. At the remains of the building where Dawes died, Batman finds Dent holding Gordon and his family at gunpoint. Dent judges the innocence of Batman, himself, and Gordon's son through three coin tosses. As the result of the first two flips, he shoots Batman in the abdomen and spares himself. Before Dent can determine the boy's fate, Batman, who was wearing body armor, tackles him over the side of the building. Gordon's son is saved, but Dent and Batman fall to the ground below resulting in Dent's death.Knowing that the citizens of Gotham will lose hope and all morale if Dent's rampage becomes public news, Batman convinces Gordon to hold him responsible for the murders. Images are shown of Gordon delivering the eulogy at Dent's funeral and smashing the Bat-Signal. Police swarm the building, and Batman flees as Gordon and his son watch.


Mystery writer Andrew Klavan, writing in The Wall Street Journal, compared the extreme measures that Batman takes to fight crime with those U.S. President George W. Bush used in the War on Terror. Klavan claims that, "at some level" The Dark Knight is "a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war." Klavan supports this reading of the film by comparing Batman – like Bush, Klavan argues – "sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past."Klavan's article has received criticism on the Internet and in mainstream media outlets, such as in The New Republic's "The Plank."Reviewing the film in The Sunday Times, Cosmo Landesman reached the opposite conclusion to Klavan, arguing that The Dark Knight "offers up a lot of moralistic waffle about how we must hug a terrorist – okay, I exaggerate. At its heart, however, is a long and tedious discussion about how individuals and society must never abandon the rule of law in struggling against the forces of lawlessness. In fighting monsters, we must be careful not to become monsters – that sort of thing. The film champions the anti-war coalition's claim that, in having a war on terror, you create the conditions for more terror. We are shown that innocent people died because of Batman – and he falls for it".Benjamin Kerstein, writing in Azure, says that both Klavan and Landesman "have a point," because "The Dark Knight is a perfect mirror of the society which is watching it: a society so divided on the issues of terror and how to fight it that, for the first time in decades, an American mainstream no longer exists."

The Dark Knight garnered over 150 nominations from various critics and organization awards at year's end, winning for various aspects of the film. Most notable, however, was Heath Ledger's almost complete sweep of over twenty awards for acting, including the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actor, the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture, and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. The Dark Knight also received nominations from the Writers Guild of America (for Best Adapted Screenplay), the Producers Guild of America, and the Directors Guild of America, as well as a slew of other guild award nominations and wins. It was nominated for Best Film at the Critics Choice Awards and was named one of the top ten films of 2008 by the American Film Institute.

The Dark Knight was nominated for eight Academy Awards for the 81st Ceremony, breaking the previous record of seven held by Dick Tracy for the most nominations received by a film based on a comic book, comic strip, or graphic novel. The Dark Knight won two awards: B Supporting Actor for Heath Ledger and Best Sound Editing. It was additionally nominated for six others, these being Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Visual Effects, Best Makeup, and Best Film Editing. Christopher Nolan was notably snubbed[neutrality disputed] from a nomination in any of the categories he was up for (Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay), and controversy ensued[citation needed] regarding the lack of a Best Picture nomination for either The Dark Knight or WALL-E, two films noted for being both critical and commercial successes. Heath Ledger was the first posthumous winner of the Best Supporting Actor award, and only the second posthumous acting winner ever (Peter Finch posthumously won the Best Actor award for his performance in the 1976 film Network). In addition, Ledger's win marked the first win in any of the major Oscar categories (producing, directing, acting, or writing) for a superhero-based film. Notably, Richard King's win in the Sound Editing category blocked a complete awards sweep of the evening by the eventual Best Picture winner, Slumdog Millionaire.


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