Welcome to “Wait, What?,” a recurring column in which we examine confusing or incoherent details in crime movies.
I was watching the bank heist scene of The Dark Knight in preparation for writing this ranking of bank heists and I was struck by something. See, the Joker has a member of his clown-masked heist crew drive a stolen yellow school bus through the bank. It busts a giant hole in the wall. Then the Joker kills that guy, throws the money onto the bus, and drives it out of the large hole in the wall all the way to the the street, where he joins a convoy of other school busses (seemingly blending in with them) just as the cops rush by in the other direction, headed to the bank.
My question is… how on earth does this happen so smoothly? The bus drives out of a hole in the bank, covered in rubble and dust and smashed up. Does the bus driver behind it not think it’s strange that a school bus covered in ash and debris has emerged from a large hole in the wall of a bank? Does that guy not radio it in?
What about the other cars driving? Is no one like “that school bus dove out of a large hole in the bank; that looks suspicious” and try to grab the license plate number or something?
Let’s go to the visual. (I made a gif.) See below:
You see what I mean?
Even if the police don’t see it literally drive out of the bank, how do they pay no attention a smashed up school bus with a cloudy stream of dirt and dust and rocks trailing it?
Actually, this is a two-parter. 1.) How do the cops not notice this obviously-implicated school bus, and, 2.), even if they do notice it, how do they not think “this is a bit odd for a school bus”? To this last bit… how does no one report the completely busted and dirty school bus, as it continues to drive away? It’s a school bus! It famously carries children! It should be safe and structurally-intact, not wrecked and covered in pollution particles?
So, are all the car drivers, police officers, and school bus drivers completely desensitized to school bus safety? Do they not think any kind of bus emerging from a hole in the wall of a bank is suspicious? There are just so many reasons for someone to call this in! Why has no one called this in?! I’m going to lie down.
