"This town deserves a better class of criminal," Heath Ledger announces as the Joker in the new Batman film, Dark Knight. The caped crusader, police captain Jim Gordon and district attorney Harvey Dent set out to stop the Joker. Much of the film is dedicated to exploring what kind of criminal and what kind of hero Gotham City deserves.
Everyone now knows that Batman is a kind of antihero, a "dark knight" who is allegedly a better hero than Gotham deserves but exactly the one it needs. But what about the Batman's alter-ero, billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne? Careful attention to the Dark Knight and its predecessor film, Batman Begins, seems to show that Wayne might be exactly the "better class of criminal" that the Joker describes.
After the jump, we explore the criminality of Bruce Wayne. (Very minor spoilers follow.)
Wayne's criminality is exactly the sort readers of DealBreaker are all too familiar with. He seems to be a white-collar criminal, engaging in the kind of corporate crimes that attract our real-life two-faced prosecutors. He takes corporate resources to pursue his own interests, uses underhanded means to acquire a majority stake in Wayne Enterprises after encouraging an initial public offering, and intimidates a potential whistle-blower.
At the start of Batman Begins, Wayne Enterprises is a private corporation controlled by William Earle, who is portrayed a the typical evil corporate titan familiar to anyone who watches Hollywood movies about big businesses. In order to gain control of the company, Wayne encourages the company to go public. Wayne then uses probably illegal chicanery and subterfuge to buy up a majority stake in Wayne Enterprises and ousts the board and management. Already Wayne seems to be violating federal disclosure and anti-take over laws.
In The Dark Knight, Wayne is discovered by an M&A lawyer to be using corporate resources for his own purposes. Specifically, Bruce has converted the R&D division into a research program to create cool equipment for Batman. When the lawyer approaches Wayne's handpicked chief executive (played by Morgan Freeman) with his discoveries, the CEO intimidates him by pointing out that unmasking a guy who spends his nights beating people to a pulp is probably not a great idea.
Bruce Wayne seems to feel no guilt about exploiting the minority shareholders in Wayne Enterprises or pillaging the corporate treasury for his crusade. How serious is this? Remember that recently prosecutors and business reporters across the country went on a jihad against a minor corporate misdeed called "backdating." If the typical backdating CEO could be compared to a mafioso underboss, Bruce Wayne is the Joker
Viewed in this way, Wayne, his CEO and their buddies in law-enforcement are corporate baddies engaged in a war against street criminals. We can't help thinking that this gives a very different meaning to the Joker's idea that Gotham deserves a better class of criminal.
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 8:49AM
seriously?
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 8:57AM
This reads like it was composed by a freshman in an intro writing class
Posted by big r , Jul 21, 2008 8:59AM
want to see a magic trick? im going to make this pencil disappear.
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 9:01AM
why so serious?
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 9:06AM
That was lame beyond words.
Posted by blndebnker , Jul 21, 2008 9:14AM
Yeah a little heavy-handed for this early on a Monday.
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 9:19AM
The Dark Knight movie banner ad above the article (at least at my end) is a nice touch.
--CS
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 9:23AM
gross.
Posted by diablo , Jul 21, 2008 9:28AM
All I can say is that the publicity machine for this movie is unbelievable.
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 9:31AM
Seriously 9:28, and sadly the over the top publicity is working. I mean it is a god damned fucking batman movie - and there have been like a million movies and a zillion cartoons in this character!!
Posted by Madmoney , Jul 21, 2008 9:35AM
Shamefully thought the same thing aboyt the takeover rules as I watched the first one... But I did have the good sense to keep that bit of financial nerdiness to myself.
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 9:58AM
@9:28 - Yes there was a lot of publicity for this movie, hence the blockbuster weekend, but most of it was due to the supporting actor’s untimely death. Some say he might even be nominated for an Academy Award. I think the marketing geniuses in Hollywood - the ostentatious scum that they are - knew this and played it for all it’s worth.
Posted by Finnegan , Jul 21, 2008 9:58AM
Carney goes to movies. Next week a breakdown of the criminal implications in Ghost Whisperer episodes, as Love-Hewitt straddles the law and our fantasies.
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 10:04AM
9:28/9:31-- are you guys retarded? did you think there wouldn't be a lot of publicity for a summer batman movie that cost over 100mm to make?
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 10:08AM
A ton of shots of CBOT in this movie. I work down there and saw them filming every night
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 10:08AM
Uh, that 'whistle-blower' didn't really "approach the CEO with his discoveries" so much as approach him with his black to blackmail Wayne for the rest of his life. The "intimidation" was actually more a question of "are you sure you'd want to blackmail this kind of guy?" statement. The whistle-blower certainly committed the more serious of the white-collar crimes in that situation.
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 10:09AM
"his black" should read "his plan." Sorry.
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 10:13AM
10:04, I have no issues with the studios hyping this movie. But what got painful was mainstream newspapers also hyping it up. I have read articles about ledger's acting in NYT as well as the WSJ!! And leave alone the countless other sources.
And for the record, the acting was mediocre. I mean it is a fucking comic book and your face is painted white.
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 10:13AM
Excellent post.
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 10:17AM
@10:13-- the nyt has been known to run movie reviews, little known fact.
and: "I mean it is a fucking comic book and your face is painted white." what does that mean?
Posted by Judson_Clark , Jul 21, 2008 10:42AM
Batman is probably single-handedly the best crime fighter of all time.
I met him once when I was five. He gave me a lolli.
Posted by chad , Jul 21, 2008 10:42AM
the movie as of now is the biggest release of all time. How and why are people acting so surprised it's getting media attention? Do you guys not understand how journalism/media works?
@10:13 Acting was mediocre? You don't have to made absurd statements you don't even believe to prove your point.
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 10:54AM
Wayne Enterprises' corporate governance problems could be solved if they simply split the roles of CEO and Chairman, don't you think?
Posted by chad , Jul 21, 2008 10:55AM
What, you don't like falafel?
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 11:04AM
If the Joker and his allies takes over the town and start their reign of terror, this can't be good for the economy and hence can't be good for Wayne Enterprises's profits. Who says the company doesn't end up being more profitable by helping Batman?
Posted by Bulging Bracket , Jul 21, 2008 11:10AM
The IPO was Earle's idea "it's all rather technical..." and he described it to Wayne as a way of securing the company's future, since Wayne hadn't been involved with the firm. So that's one crime out the window. The net shareholdings after the IPO aren't exactly disclosed, but the implication was that the firm was wholly bought back. This would have been a violation, but undercuts the subsequent violations alleged.
Definitely weak article, and it should have appeared last week ahead of the opening.
Posted by Anal_yst , Jul 21, 2008 11:20AM
$195 million opening weekend (globally), jesus
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=darkknight.htm
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 11:21AM
I can see Carney now, sitting and typing this with the messed up greasepaint Joker face on.
Total fanboy.
http://tinyurl.com/6h7a3h
-DK
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 11:21AM
lol @ Morgan "Freedman"
Posted by Anal_yst , Jul 21, 2008 11:26AM
Oh, and what are you suggesting is illegal about how Wanye bought up (through various trusts and the like)? There are myriad ways to do so legally, that I can think of, and I'm far from a lawyer specializing in such things.
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 11:33AM
falafel and mayo, that would make a nice combo
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 11:37AM
Too long, didn't read.
Posted by BruceWayne , Jul 21, 2008 11:41AM
Note to self:
Park all-terrain vehicle up Carney's ass.
Posted by John Carney , Jul 21, 2008 11:42AM
@buldgebracket: Impressive memory of the first Batman movie. We haven't seen it since it appeared in theaters but we seem to remember having the strong impression that Wayne was pulling a "Columbo" on Earle, acting dumb while he pulled his behind the scenes takeover.
And, yes, we do think that not disclosing to minority shareholders the fact that a corporate insider intends to buy up a majority of the shares and then use divisions of the companyto pursue his private hobbies will get you in legal hot water.
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 1:18PM
@Carney: When did anyone in either movie ever identify the existence of any minority shareholders? You're working on a critical assumption that they exist...
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 1:30PM
Its a movie, not a case study.
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 1:30PM
It's a movie, not a case study.
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 1:31PM
It's a movie, not a case study.
Posted by Bulging Bracket , Jul 21, 2008 5:26PM
@Carney - It was in heavy rotation on my movie channels for a while, and then it's been on Cable fairly frequently in the past few months.
The caretaker CEO was selling it out from under Bruce, but Bruce bought it back during the IPO. The implication was that the CEO was an unfaithful trustee trying to milk the company for his own interests (hence the firing of Freeman).
Unfortunately the writers didn't hire a securities or M&A lawyer to vet the various characters' activities.
Posted by guest , Jul 21, 2008 5:35PM
Wow, I thought this would be some sort of well-reasoned argument, but I have to agree with the poster above. Even before I read the comment I was thinking "high-school essay".
Disappointed.
Posted by guest , Jul 22, 2008 8:48AM
Actually, Wayne Enterprises is a federal government contractor who gets its funding from the congressional black budget. Our tax dollars are funding all of his crime fighting high tech equipment.
Posted by guest , Jul 28, 2008 12:45PM
Er, you do know that it's a movie, right? Fiction. There's no such thing as Wayne Enterprises. Not wasting of tax dollars, etc?
It was a great movie and the whole point of having Bruce Wayne do these kind of things is to examine whether it's justified to to bad things for a good purpose. Is the Dark Knight truly a hero?
Posted by guest , Oct 02, 2008 3:04PM
John Carney is an a$$hole and doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. The contrast between Bruce Wayne and Joker is money. Bruce needs money to fuel his crusade and in doing so inspires the people of Gotham to stand up. The Joker used money to influence his cohorts but later burned it because it does not need the money. Joker is still the better class of criminal.
Posted by guest , Oct 02, 2008 3:06PM
John Carney is an a$$hole and doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. The contrast between Bruce Wayne and Joker is money. Bruce needs money to fuel his crusade and in doing so inspires the people of Gotham to stand up. The Joker used money to influence his cohorts but later burned it because it does not need the money. Joker is still the better class of criminal.