Batman Begins, directed by Christopher Nolan, is a quintessential prequel with clear references to the post-9/11 United States. As a boy, Bruce Wayne (played by Gus Lewis) has nightmares that haunt him even in daytime. One day, eight-year-old Bruce falls into a well that serves as a bat cave; although his father rescues him, he becomes fearful about bats. Not long after, he accompanies his parents (played by Sara Stewart and Linus Roache), the richest in Gotham City (filmed in Chicago), to the opera. During the performance, he has an anxiety attack and asks to leave. When the three leave, a mugger shoots and kills his parents, leaving him orphaned and guilty that he caused their death, but nevertheless a ward of faithful servant Alfred Pennyworth (played by Michael Caine) during the rest of his childhood. He cannot understand why someone would be so desperate to kill for money, and he is even more incredulous when the killer is sentenced to a mental institution rather than being imprisoned for life or executed. He wants to do something to respond to the injustice, but how? As an adult (played by Christian Bale), his longtime girlfriend Rachel Dawes (played by Katie Holmes), now an incorruptible Assistant District Attorney, warns him that revenge is about one person feeling good, whereas justice is correcting the underlying social ill. Nevertheless, his nightmares continue, so he decides to drop out of sight to ascertain what makes the criminal mind tick, though Gotham City crimelord Carmine Falcone (played by Tom Wilkinson) presents a perfectly plausible explanation--desperation for the poor, hedonism for the rest. In time, he gets himself arrested in China, and he is in a prison in the Chinese Himalayas, where Henri Ducard (played by Liam Neeson) has his eye on Wayne because of his physical stamina as a kungfu fighter. Ducard he arranges for Wayne's release and challenges him to carry a blue flower to the top of a nearby mountain (the actual location is a glacier in Iceland), where Ducard promises that he will find his destiny. The "destiny" turns out to be an invitation to join the League of Shadows, a gang that claims to have existed for centuries, seeking to redress world injustice by violence. The inference is that the gang, which overthrew the Roman Empire, will also do so to the American Empire. Anyway, Wayne rejects the invitation, returns to New York, where he has been presumed dead after an absence of seven years, and he embarks slowly on a quest to fight his fears by transforming himself into Batman. He indeed has scores to settle with the mental health system and the criminal justice system. To prepare himself, he visits a neglected division of Wayne Enterprises, headed by Lucius Fox (played by Morgan Freeman), which has prototypes of advanced technology, including armor that cannot be pierced and a batmobile. He also develops the bat cave as a retreat, reacquaints himself with Rachel, and ultimately has a showdown with Ducard, who plans to destroy Gotham City through an act of terrorism. The outcome of the film is obvious, but the plot appears to beckon filmviewers to analogize Ducard with Osama Bin Laden and Batman with George W. Bush. One official at the libertarian Cato Institute sees Batman as a gutsy, individualistic hero in the private sector who makes a strong stand against evil, triumphing over those who coddle criminals and are on the take in corrupt political systems. In short, Batman Begins is definitely a noir film. MH
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