Full SPOILERS ahead for Batman!
While Batman’s Riddler was influenced by the Zodiac Killer, it turns out that co-writer and director Matt Reeves also drew inspiration from another infamous true-crime case for another villain in his DC movie.
Reeves confirmed to IGN that The Batman’s version of mob boss Carmine Falcone was modeled after infamous Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger.
Let’s take a look at how this Batman villain and a real-life criminal relate to each other.
El Rata Alada: Carmine Falcone
One of Batman’s main mysteries is the Caped Crusader’s quest to solve Edward Nashton’s Spanish riddle of “el rata alada”, which translates into English as “winged rat”. It turns out there was a confidential informant who helped the authorities catch former Gotham crime boss Sal Maroni and his drug dealing operation. If Batman can figure out who this rat is, it will bring him closer to catching the Riddler.
Hailed as the biggest drug bust in the city’s history, the Maroni case has made careers for both cops, prosecutors and politicians, including Mayor Don Mitchell Jr., District Attorney Gil Colson and GCPD Commissioner Pete Savage.
All three are eventually brutally murdered by the Riddler – Coulson’s demise seems to have been inspired by the collar-wielding murder of pizza delivery boy Brian Wells, driven by the need to expose Gotham City’s corruption. The Riddler specifically wants to shed light on how the much-touted renewal fund, set up decades earlier by Thomas Wayne, has become a fund to bribe the corrupt instead of helping the needy as it was intended.
John Turturro as Carmine Falcone in Batman. (Source: Jonathan Ollie/™ and © DC Comics)
In the end, “El Rata Alada” turns out to be Gotham’s most powerful man, crime boss Carmine Falcone. After denouncing fellow mobster Sal Maroni and removing him from power, Falcone took control of Gotham’s underworld. Falcone, in turn, helped those who helped him by bribing the mayor, the district attorney, scores of GCPD officers, and even reporters. As dishonest cop Kenzi later admits, Falcone has essentially been the real mayor of Gotham for two decades, so it doesn’t really matter who wins the current election.
After it’s revealed on the news that Falcone was an informant who got away with murder, Batman hands him over to Lieutenant Jim Gordon and his loyal cops. Falcone is confronted by his second in command, Oz, also known as the Penguin, who says that his boss will not survive a night in Blackgate Prison now that he is known to be a rat. Turns out Oz was half right. Falcone does indeed die that night – literally moments later – not at the hands of outraged inmates, but from the Riddler’s sniper rifle.
While no one will mourn the loss of Carmine Falcone, the film makes it clear that the ensuing vacuum and power grab will unleash new hell in an already devastated Gotham City.
How Carmine Falcone Reflects Whitey Bulger
Like the fictional Carmine Falcone, the all-too-real Boston mobster “Whitey” Bulger has ruled his city’s underworld for two decades while also acting as a top-tier confidential informant. Bulger eventually went on the run after being informed of the charges by his FBI handler, and in later years he became the FBI’s most wanted fugitive. In the end, in 2011 he was captured, convicted, and in 2018 he was tortured and killed in prison.
Bulger’s murder remains unsolved, but it is generally believed that he was killed by other New England mobsters incarcerated in the same prison. His eyes were reportedly gouged out, his tongue cut out and beaten to death – in a wheelchair – for being a rat.
During his long criminal career, Bulger corrupted the Boston FBI and reportedly had much more on his payroll. (Oh, and Whitey’s younger brother, Billy, was the president of the Massachusetts Senate when it all happened, but the younger Bulger still insists that his professional path never crossed that of his bully brother.)
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While working as an FBI informant, Bulger ratted out his mafia rivals to the Bureau, who then turned a blind eye to the growing power of their prize rat in the Boston underworld. The Boston FBI, especially Bulger’s handlers, even interfered in his cases and obstructed other law enforcement investigations into him and his Winter Hill Gang.
The sordid saga of the Boston FBI’s Faustian deal with gangster informant Bulger has already inspired several Roman keys on the big and small screens, most notably the Best Picture winner The Departed. Bulger’s criminal career was also chronicled in the 2015 film Black Mass starring Johnny Depp as Whitey.
It should be noted that The Departed, Black Mass, and Batman are all releases from Warner Bros., a studio with a storied legacy of gangster films. In both Black Mass and Batman, even Peter Sarsgaard plays a supporting role as a doomed victim with criminal connections!
While The Departed and Black Mass may be the most famous films inspired by Whitey Bulger, Reeves told IGN that he actually watched Joe Berlinger’s 2014 documentary Whitey: The United States of America vs. James J. Bulger, which inspired him. to Carmine. Falcone.
Berlinger’s documentary chronicles Bulger’s trial, his victims, and even includes footage of Bulger himself offering his dubious version of the story (basically emphasizing that he was never a rat and that the FBI was in fact his informant).
Although Falcone and Bulger are physically dissimilar, both had a penchant for wearing dark glasses. As Falcone actor John Turturro recently explained to IGN, he sees Falcone’s sunglasses as his own version of his character’s supervillain mask, which he hides behind as he sees Falcone as an “underground being” who avoids exposure.
One particularly gruesome parallel between Falcone and Bulger was that both strangled women who knew too much. In The Batman, Falcone strangled both Selina Kyle’s mother, Maria, and Selina’s friend Annika, and later tries to do the same to Selina herself, his daughter. In her final moments, Annika left Selina a voicemail recording of her being killed literally by Falcone, because she inadvertently found out he was a rat.
When he was finally brought to trial, Bulger was convicted of the murder of Deborah Hussey, the stepdaughter of his accomplice Stephen Flemmi, who Bulger suspected might have spoken to the police about what she knew about their crimes and informant status. (Flemmi, like Bulger, was also an FBI informant.)
While The Batman may just be a work of fiction and comic book-inspired, Matt Reeves clearly leaned on some of the most infamous American crimes of the past 60 years to make his film’s villains seem even more real. and cooling. The truth is stranger and often more frightening than fiction.
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