“Let the games begin” – Bane

The Dark Knight Rises is a solid action film that I’m guessing many of you have seen by now. While there are not as many game theory examples as in The Dark Knight (pirate’s game, barganing game, prisoner’s dilemma), the movie does have many scenes that illustrate strategic thinking.

I want to discuss a few of the game theory concepts I noticed throughout the movie. I will give fair warning this post does contain spoilers, so you want to read it only after watching the movie.

Still want to read more? Okay, then let’s begin.

This post focuses on the very first scene in the movie, with a few notes about the rest.

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"All will be well if you use your mind for your decisions, and mind only your decisions." Since 2007, I have devoted my life to sharing the joy of game theory and mathematics. MindYourDecisions now has over 1,000 free articles with no ads thanks to community support! Help out and get early access to posts with a pledge on Patreon. .

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The opening scene: reasoning ahead

The action begins right away. A CIA agent boards a plane, ready to interrogate a gang of criminals and a scientist. He quickly runs into trouble as the “masked man” Bane strikes back. Bane had planned all along to explode the plane and capture the scientist, flying away on a hanging rope from a cargo airplane, just like Batman did when he captured Lau The Dark Knight.

The CIA agent was outmatched physically and mentally. But he further sealed his fate by making a series of terrible strategic decisions. Here are a few of the mistakes the CIA agent made.

Mistake 1: trying to interrogate on an airplane

First, the agent chose the wrong location to conduct the interrogation. The CIA agent probably thought he would have power in the skies, holding them hostage. If anyone refused to cooperate, he could simply throw them out of the plane. Sounds good, but do you see the problem with this plan?

The CIA agent was playing the following sequential game. He could ask for information, and the criminal could either stay silent or confess. If the criminal kept mum, the CIA agent would then have the option of throwing him off the plane or keeping him alive. The plan is to compel the criminal to confess, or else he can face death by gravity. Will this plan work?

Let’s assign point values to analyze the game. The CIA agent gets 1 point if he gets the information, and the criminal gets 1 point if he keeps quiet (and -1 if he offers up information). If the CIA agent throws the criminal out of the plane, the agent faces a double whammy. He did not get the information (-1) and he killed someone who knew it (-1). So the game looks like this:

The CIA agent wants to threaten the criminal by throwing him out of the plane. But will he ever follow through?

Therein lies the problem: if he kills the criminal, he can’t get the information from him! It’s actually worse for the CIA agent to kill someone who has information than to keep him alive and hope he might confess later. Thus the CIA agent has no real bargaining power, and the criminal would choose to keep quiet from the very start. Here’s the equilibrium path of the game:

In general, the strategy of using high altitude interrogation should never work, but it’s dramatic characteristics make it a frequent setting in TV and movie shows.

Incidentally, the CIA agent could have taken a note from Batman. In The Dark Knight, Batman goes berserk and busts into a club to find the mob boss Maroni. He wants to find the location of the Joker, so he hangs Maroni from the top of the building. Here’s the important dialog of that scene:

Maroni: From one professional to another, if you’re going to threaten somebody, pick a better spot! From this height… the fall wouldn’t kill me. Batman: I’m counting on it. (drops Maroni who gets injured)

Here Batman’s threat to drop Maroni was credible–he follows through!–precisely because the fall was non-lethal. Still, Maroni does not crack since he knows Batman won’t go any further: Batman has rules about not killing. Ultimately Maroni refuses to talk since he fears the Joker more than anything Batman can do.

In short, trying to interrogate at high altitudes is not wise. Remember the Prisoner’s Dilemma interrogation takes place in a boring old police station. That was an incentive scheme that worked–no need for dramatic threats, just use a good strategy.

Mistake 2: selecting out the stupidest criminal

Next, the agent announces his offer to the criminals. The flight plan only contains one of the criminals, so the rest are unaccounted for and expendable. He says, “The first one to talk gets to stay on the aircraft!!” What do you think, is that a good plan or not?

There is a selection bias in this offer. One needs to think about is the type of criminal that would be attracted to this offer. Criminal organizations are not transparent organizations where knowledge is freely shared. The peons at the bottom know almost nothing, and they have the least to lose. The mob bosses are the ones with all the knowledge and would rather die than offer up what they know. So, who do you think is most likely to talk when the agent rewards the “first” person to speak?

The offer to save the first people will attract the lowest of the lowest, who either know nothing or would lie just to save their skin. Instead of gaining valuable information, the offer will attract exactly the wrong kind of person!

Mistake 3: trying to bluff his way out

Nothing so far has worked, so the CIA agent wants to show he means business. After the first criminal stays quiet, he points a gun to his head and shoots. Thinking he’s scared everyone, he asks who is next to play the confession game.

Bane is not fazed and in fact taunts him. “Perhaps he’s wondering why someone would shoot a man before throwing him out of a plane.” Touche. If the CIA agent really meant to kill him, he would have thrown him out. Why go through the extra effort of shooting him? It was clearly theatrics and a bluff.

Bane has learned enough. He crashes the plane and escapes with the scientist.

Next up in Bane’s plan: time to implement the same wreckage on Batman and Gotham. As Bane says before he executes his diabolical scheme, “Let the games begin.”

Here are some of the other games and strategic elements peppered throughout the rest of The Dark Knight Rises, in brief:

(REMINDER: SPOILERS BELOW!!)

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Taking hostages

Hostages are used in many scenes as protection. Here are a few that I noticed:

–Selina Kyle takes an important Congress member to protect herself after being backstabbed by Mr. Daggett’s crew

–Bane ties hostages from the trading floor to escape by motorcycle

–Bane takes an extra board member from Wayne Enterprises (so he can kill one to coerce Lucius Fox to activate the reactor)

In each case, the criminal exploits the police rule to not kill innocent to save themselves.

Handing out the trigger

Bane smartly does not hold on to the trigger for the bomb. He announces he has handed it to a “random” citizen to confuse the authorities. Of course he ultimately would not leave such power in untrusted hands, but Batman learns about that nearly too late.

We don’t negotiate with terrorists

This is uttered by the President on TV. We all know this is technically not true, but this is often a general government policy to deter terrorism (no reward = less incentive to take hostages) and in theory help the greater good.

The threat to prevent escape

Bane turns the army force against Gotham by threatening to blow up the city if anyone tries to escape. When Blake tries to escape, they try to scare him away but eventually blow up the bridge in a vain effort to avoid Bane’s counterpunch.

Batman faces a villain that can rival the Joker in terms of pure destruction. That he rises up to the challenge is an impressive display of courage and strategy. He shows he is willing to give it all for Gotham, and that’s the only chance the city has in this game.