So, obviously, we all know The Plane Scene very well, some of us can quote it, line for line, from memory, but something I think not enough people really appreciate about The Plane Scene us how utterly fucking nonsensical it is, to the point of almost being absurdist.
Like, not wanting to get all CinemaSins style 'zomg plot hole!!1' spergic over it, but it's genuinely quite amazing how nobody in that scene has any reason to act the way that they act or to do the things that they do. It's completely inexplicable.
You see, you might think the whole point of The Plane Scene was to kidnap Dr. Leonid Pavel, so Bane and his men can take him to Gotham City and have him arm the nuclear device that he uses to hold that city hostage.
Except that Masketta Man, who we later learn is explicitly working for Bane, because he shows up again in Gotham with Bane's men,
already has Dr. Pavel in his custody at the beginning of the film, then willingly hands over one of the most important figures in their master plan over to CIA. So they're kidnapping someone
they had already successfully kidnapped, then gave away.
Bane and his henchmen, their identities hidden beneath black bags on their heads, are loaded aboard the plane only after Masketta Man mentions to CIA that they work for the mercenary, the masked man (Bane), when CIA suddenly becomes interested.
What if CIA had not been impressed by this revelation? What if he had enough information on Bane and his operations in the region and didn't need Dr. Pavel to bring friends? Masketta Man, Bane and his brothers would have been left standing there like a bunch of knobbers, watching the person they needed to carry out their plan literally fly away, because THEY gave him up. Their whole plan hinges on the assumption that CIA will react this way, and luckily for them, he just does and it's fine!
Also, did CIA or any of his men not think to unmask the prisoners before loading them onto the plane? This seems a shocking oversight from a seemingly professional espionage outfit.
After being interrogated at gunpoint (meaning that at any point CIA could shoot a man, then throw him out of the plane), Bane then announces that getting himself caught was indeed part of his master plan and that the next step is to crash the plane with no survivors. To this end, he stages an elaborate mid-flight
re-kidnapping of the person they had already kidnapped, which very well could have gotten Bane, Dr. Pavel and everyone else involved killed.
Whilst all this is going on, there's also this bizarre preoccupation with taking a sample of Dr. Pavel's blood and transplanting it into a cadaver, presumably so anyone who finds the wreckage will assume Dr. Pavel is dead. Now, I'm no expert, admittedly, but I would assume that any blood-based evidence would be destroyed by the ignition of the jet fuel in the crash anyway, making this step a completely unneccesary complication to an already completely unneccesarily complicated plan.
Also, shoutout to this guy who completely bungles his landing and bangs his head on the side of the plane, in full view of the camera, and they just kept it in.
The completely unneccesary and dangerous re-kidnapping of a man they had already kidnapped results in the destruction of CIA's plane and the death of this poor fucker, let's call him Brother, who basically just has to die in a planecrash for no reason, because Bane told him to.
R.I.P., Based Brother.
The whole sequence makes no fucking sense at all and serves no purpose, other than presumably, allowing Bane to meet CIA, who he was a big guy for.
It is the apex of cinema. The essence of kino. Bravo Nolan, what a great human bean.
