The Dark Knight’s Redemption

The Dark Knight Rises is one well-done action adventure movie to cap off Christopher Nolan’s rebooted Batman trilogy. I certainly anticipated seeing the movie, and after seeing it, I can say that my expectations were sated.

*** Spoiler Alert ***

The movie presents an apocalyptic like battle in Gotham City between Batman (Christian Bale) and nemesis Bane (Tom Hardy), the presumed leader of the League of Shadows, and successor to Ra’s al Ghul. I find that one of the resounding themes in The Dark Knight Rises, which makes the movie work, is the redemption of people. It is about being rescued out of darkness into the light. The very idea is a yearning within the depths of a person’s soul, it is something that connects and engages viewers in the story.

In Dark Knight Rises Bane initially battles and breaks the Batman’s back, and imprisons the injured Bruce Wayne in a pit far away from Gotham. From inside the pit, the only contact with the external world is a video monitor displaying the scenes of Gotham’s fall. Bane also entraps Gotham’s police force underneath the city’s ruins, save a handful of officers including Commissioner James Gordon (Gary Oldman) and John “Robin” Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt).

Bane rules the city, frees criminals who were imprisoned under the “Dent Act,” a law enacted in commemoration of the late Harvey “Two Face” Denton (Aaron Eckhart), which was created under the false pretense that Denton died a martyr for justice, when nothing could be further from the truth (All this is covered in the second movie: The Dark Knight). The fruit of the city’s sin became ripe. The misguided Bane uses the Gotham’s wealthy upper-class as the scapegoats for all the city’s woes and corruption. He then begins a mock tribunal, finds the rich guilty and executes them. Bane also uses a nuclear weapon as leverage to keep the citizens of Gotham from an insurrection. Yet, his intentions are more heinous, as the weapon is timed to eventually detonate. His ruse is to also present justice under false pretenses but the end game is death and destruction.

Inside the pit, Wayne physically recovers from his injuries but also must overcome his own fear of falling, in order to climb out of the pit in order to escape. He tries twice with a safety rope, but fails. The rope represents his unwillingness to change for fear to move forward after a failure. It is only when he climbs the pit without a rope that he escapes. The pit wherein Wayne is imprisoned is a testing ground, ultimately revealing the quality of a person.

The pit is also the place that wrought forth Bane’s darkness. He was once imprisoned there, but never escaped. He was broken out by the League of Shadows. Bane essentially brings the evil of the pit to the city of Gotham.

Batman then returns to Gotham, frees the imprisoned police force, and leads the final battle to defeat Bane and his cronies. Bane is eventually defeated by Batman, with Selina “Catwoman” Kyle (Anne Hathaway) delivering the kill shot. Batman then flies the nuclear bomb out to sea where it detonates and he is presumed dead. Batman had willingly took on the false accusation of being the one who killed Denton and was once hunted by the law, is now fighting alongside them to redeem to city. The very name of Batman is likewise redeemed, not as a vigilante murderer, but as the rightful hero Gotham deserves. The perceived death of Batman is shared in tandem with the demise of Bruce Wayne, allowing him to leave behind the vigilante life, which has taken a toll upon his body.

Catwoman too experience redemption in acquiring the “clean slate” program from Batman in exchange for helping him defeat Bane. The program allows her to clear her name of a dark past and leave the life of burglary. Wayne and Kyle ultimately start a new life together.

There is something within us all that yearns for redemption. We all make mistakes. We all come to the point in our lives when we just want to hit the reset button and restart the game of life. We desire to have a second chance. A few of us are blessed with the chance to make things right again.
Redemption’s yearnings stem from deep within the recesses of the soul. It is part of a God shaped vacuum within each person’s heart. In the ultimate sense of things, all people sin. They are all separated from God. Yet, God enters into this world, He lives among us as a man, suffers with us, and He dies upon the cross to make atonement for sinners, and He rises to life again on the third day, so that whosoever believes can have eternal life. This is God’s redemptive plan, which had been in effect since the beginning of time.

Bane is like the Devil. Both hold people captive in darkness. They make only empty promises of safety but their endgames end in death and destruction. They might speak words like justice, but they only use them as an ideology to keep up a ruse so that the lost would remain in darkness. However, it is Christ destroys the works of the Devil (1 John 3:7-8).

~ WGN

As an addendum, I would also express my solidarity to those who suffered in the tragedy at the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado.