Batman
- PG-13
- Year:
- 1989
- 126 min
- 3,001 Views
FADE IN:
EXT. CITYSCAPE - NIGHT
The place is Gotham City. The time, 1987 -- once removed.
The city of Tomorrow: stark angles, creeping shadows,
dense, crowded, airless, a random tangle of steel and
concrete, self-generating, almost subterranean in its
aspect... as if hell had erupted through the sidewalks and
kept on growing. A dangling fat moon shines overhead, ready
to burst.
EXT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT
Amid the chrome and glass sits a dark and ornate Gothic
anomaly:
old City Cathedral, once grand, now abandoned --long since boarded up and scheduled for demolition.
On the rooftop far above us, STONE GARGOYLES gaze down from
their shadowy, windswept perches, keeping monstrous watch
over the distant streets below, sightless guardians of the
Gotham night.
One of them is moving.
The pulsing heart of downtown Gotham, a neon nightmare of
big-city corruption, almost surreal in its oppressiveness.
Hookers wave to drug dealers. Street hustlers slap high-
fives with three-card monte dealers. They all seem to know
each other... with one conspicuous exception:
A TOURIST FAMILY, Mom, Dad, and little Jimmy, staring
straight ahead as they march in perfect lockstep down the
main drag. They've just come out of a bit show two blocks
over; the respectable theatre crowd has thinned out, and
now -- Playbills in hand -- they find themselves adrift in
the predatory traffic of Gotham's meanest street.
MOM:
For God's sake, Harold, can we
please just get a taxi??
DAD:
I'm trying to get a --
(shouting)
TAXI!!
Three cabs streak pass and disappear. MOM grimaces in
frustration as LITTLE JIMMY consults a subway map.
JIMMY:
Nearby, STREET TYPES are beginning to snicker. DAD surveys
them nervously, gestures toward the subway map.
DAD:
Put that away. We'll look like
tourists.
TWO COPS lean on their patrol car outside an all-night
souvlaki stand, sipping coffee and chatting with a HOOKER.
The HOOKER smiles at JIMMY. JIMMY smiles back. MOM yanks
him off down the street and glowers at DAD.
DAD (cont.)
We'll never get a cab here. Let's
cut over to Seventh.
JIMMY:
Seventh is that way.
DAD:
I know where we are!
EXT. SIDE STREET - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT
A deserted access street, sidewalks lined with the husks of
stripped-down cars. MOM, DAD, and JIMMY take a deep breath
and march down the darkened street. A VOICE startles them.
VOICE:
Hey, mister. Gimme a dollar?
The VOICE belongs to a DERELICT -- nineteen or twenty,
acne-scarred -- who sits between two garbage cans, his palm
uplifted. His ratty t-shirt reads: 'I LOVE GOTHAM CITY.'
MOM, DAD, and JIMMY pause for the merest of seconds, then
move on -- pretending not to hear.
DERELICT:
Mister. How about it. One dollar?
(standing up)
One dollar, man. Are you deaf?
Are you deaf? -- Do you speak
English??
By now the TOURISTS are halfway across the street.
Mercifully, the DERELICT doesn't seem to be following.
They pick up their pace. They don't see the SHADOWY FIGURE
in the alleyway. They don't see the GUN until a gloved hand
brings it down, butt-first, across the back of DAD's neck.
DAD crumples. MOM grabs JIMMY and backs up against a brick
wall, too terrified to scream. The DERELICT races across
the street to join his confederate, the STREET PUNK, who's
already searching for DAD's wallet.
MOM's mouth opens in panic. They can see she's about to
snap -- so the STREET PUNK, still in a crouch, trains his
gun on JIMMY.
STREET PUNK:
Do the kid a favor, lady. Don't
scream.
The poor woman is utterly horrified. TEARS stream down her
face. But she keeps her wits about her, stifles the urge to
shriek, and hustles JIMMY off down the street.
The two PUNKS watch them break into a run -- then chuckle,
slap hands, race off in the opposite direction.
EXT. ROOFTOP - NIGHT
Six stories up. The PUNKS -- NICK and EDDIE -- hunker down
on the tar-and-gravel roof, sizing up their take.
NICK:
(emptying the wallet)
All right. The Gold Card.
(tossing the credit card
in EDDIE's face)
A chill wind whips across the roof as NICK extracts the
cash and begins to count it. There's a distant, indistinct
CLANG:
metal on metal. EDDIE hears it and tenses up.EDDIE:
Let's beat it, man. I don't like
being up here.
NICK:
What, scared of heights?
EDDIE:
I dunno, man. After what happened to
Johnny Gobs --
NICK:
Look, Johnny Gobs got ripped and
walked off a roof, all right? No big
loss.
EDDIE:
That ain't what I heard. That ain't
what I heard at all.
(beat)
I heard the bat got him.
NICK:
Gimme a break, will you? Shut up...
EDDIE:
Five stories, straight down. There
was no blood in the body.
NICK:
No sh*t. It was all over the
pavement.
NICK has no patience with campfire tales -- but here on the
roof, in the pale moonlight, he can't ignore the slight
tingle at the base of his spine...
EDDIE:
There was no blood, man.
(beat)
My brother says... all the bad things
you done... they come back and
haunt you...
NICK:
Listen to this. How old are you?
There ain't no bat.
EDDIE:
My brother's a priest, man.
NICK:
No wonder you're such a chickenshit.
Now shut up.
(conclusively)
There ain't no bat.
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