BadAss Movies of BadAssness: The Dark Knight

Christopher Nolan is a mad scientist. He can concoct the wickedest plots; the most badass action sequences; the sleekest motor vehicle chases; and biting social commentary. Dialog that, to this day holds up to the stories of our times and tells the tale of right and wrong, and questions what is justice in a time of unjust chaos and how do we accomplish peace while not falling into the trap of becoming the very demons we seek to exorcise? Christian Bale returns as our muscular hero dressed all in black and this time he's brought another all-star cast, and even takes our hero out for a little trot around the globe--which is something we've never seen Batman do. Batman Begins gave us Bruce Wayne finally outside of Gotham but The Dark Knight finally took Batman to another country...China!

How can you talk about The Dark Knight and not talk about the late, the great, Heath Ledger? His performance as The Joker is one of the greatest character performances by an actor ever committed to film. All of the subtle physical acting he's doing in scenes, and all of the pained/forced laughter that he emits. His version of The Joker is an entity all its own and I love how Nolan doesn't ever give him a backstory. He is just a force of nature throughout the film. Like hurricane season and forest fire season, The Joker is an inevitability. 

You get subtle draws from a few versions of The Joker, but you never get a concrete story. I love how he's driving an amusement park semi-truck in the scene where they're trying to kidnap Harvey Dent from the police van. That's a subtle nod to The Joker's main hideout typically being at an amusement park. We also get a lot of time based kills. In the Joker's first appearance, he would announce that someone was going to die at a specific time and all of the police would gather, and it didn't matter how many men were protecting the target, sure enough, at the stroke of the clocks chimes, the men The Joker targeted died. There's lot of little easter eggs for long time Batman fans to pick up on hidden throughout The Dark Knight.

The Dark Knight is one of the best Batman films ever made, and it is one of the best films ever made. Period. 

If there ever was a title that deserved to be a B.A.M.B.A. title, it's The Dark Knight. Very badass.