Extreme Pharmacology: How Crank Out-Sciences Batman Begins
By contrast, another action film released one year earlier and made with roughly ten times the budget features pharmacology of a less accurate sort. Batman Begins, was director Christopher Nolan’s relaunch of the comic book franchise, and was hailed as a huge success both critically and financially after its summer 2005 release. Though the film was, of course, based upon material from the fantastical world of comic books, the gritty feel of the movie was intended to portray Batman’s vigilante adventures as plausible, if not entirely realistic. Hence, the film’s handling of its key pharmaceutical plot point, a hallucinogenic drug experienced by Bruce Wayne in the Far East and used as a weapon by the villainous Scarecrow, is disappointingly clumsy to anyone with a basic understanding of the drug class and its mechanisms.
There are a variety of hallucinogenic compounds that either occur naturally (mescaline & psilocybin) or have been derived in a lab (LSD). Route of administration for most hallucinogens is oral (with a few exceptions, the most notable being DMT), and after ingestion, hallucinogens are distributed to all major organ systems, including the central nervous system (yes, Virginia, they pass the blood brain barrier). Psychological effects follow 30-90 minutes later, with peak effects occurring at 2-4 hours. The psychological effects of hallucinogens are varied, and in fact, are very unpredictable. Nichols notes that the effects are extremely dependent upon the expectations of the user (‘set’) and the context of the environment (‘setting’). Unlike other psychoactive drugs, which have relatively fixed effects on behavior, the set and setting of hallucinogens are considered to be of primary importance to the drug-taking experience. The most common report among users is the strong visual and, to a lesser degree, auditory illusions that can take any number of forms. There is a loss of linear thinking that is replaced by jumbled and tangential thought processes. Tactile (touch) sensation is magnified, understanding of time distorted, and in many cases, there are reports of synesthesia, or a mixing of sensations (‘seeing’ sounds, or ‘hearing’ colors are common).
Positive responses (‘good trips’) are sometimes described as transcendent and insightful, while negative responses (‘bad trips’) consist of acute panicky feelings, and in extreme cases, mental confusion or paranoia. Although most experiences go unrecounted in an official way, it appears that good trips heavily outnumber bad trips, and that most ‘overdoses’ (i.e. emergency room admittances) result from mental confusion or feelings of fear/panic in novice drug users.
In Batman Begins, however, the fictional and unnamed hallucinogen appears to be particularly adept at producing negative experiences. The young Mr. Wayne’s trip begins after inhaling the smoke of a mysterious blue flower, and the psychological effects happen immediately, which is not like any known hallucinogen. The trip itself, however, fits with some of the characteristics described above: Bruce has a strong flashback to a disturbing childhood event (falling in a cave filled with bats), while just prior to the drug administration, he and Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson) had been discussing Bruce’s fears. Given the strong influence of expectation and context (set & setting) on hallucinogen-induced experiences, this fits in nicely. Additionally, Bruce has some mild (when compared to later events) visual and auditory hallucinations. The biggest problem in this scene is that Bruce is required to find the masked Ducard in a large group of similarly masked ninjas (yes, I said ninjas). This task requires Bruce’s complete concentration, and would be exceedingly challenging under normal circumstances, never mind during the reduced mental capacity he should be having under the influence of the drug.
Moving on from the Far East, very little happens from the view of the pharmacologist until the second half of the movie, after Bruce’s return to Gotham. Here, we meet Dr. Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy), who’s up to no good in his day job as psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum. He’s importing the little blue flower’s active ingredient (I presume it’s in chemical form, since they’re being transported inside of stuffed animals and not as flower deliveries) with the help of Gotham mobster boss Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson). Our second big pharmacological scene results when Falcone is arrested and threatens to reveal Dr. Crane’s activities, unless he’s declared insane and transferred to Arkham. At this point, Dr. Crane is only too happy to oblige. After revealing his Scarecrow’s mask (which turns out to be a gas mask to protect Dr. Crane from his own drug), he hits Falcone with an aerosol dose of the drug, and says that his other patients don’t like his mask either: "They scream and they cry, much like you’re doing now."
Similar scenarios play out when Dr. Crane/Scarecrow poisons Batman and the assistant district attorney Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes) and ultimately, Dr. Crane himself; though a distinction is made in Ms. Dawes case that she received a very concentrated dose (with Dr. Crane noting “The mind can only take so much”). The question with these individual scenes is: does this make sense? And here, again, we have to take a time-out to address an issue that is critical to the pharmacology underlying Batman Begins.
What is a hallucination? A hallucination is defined as abnormal sensory perceptions; that is, seeing or hearing things which are not there. There are many types of experiences that can be classified as a hallucination, and the causes of hallucinations are manifold, from fevers, to mental illness, to drug-induced experiences. In the context of the movie, however, the hallucinatory events that we’re talking about are actually related to psychosis or a loss of contact with reality, which is marked by delusions and hallucinations. Schizophrenics often have psychotic episodes where they can have overwhelming hallucination.3 These types of hallucinations are superimposed over reality; that is, the person having a psychotic hallucination believes that the events are real. They are most commonly auditory in nature and they are often threatening in nature. This is clearly the effect that Dr. Crane’s gas is intended to have, and so the next question is: Do hallucinogens actually cause psychotic hallucinations?
While LSD and related compounds may have taken on the collective term of hallucinogens, it is considered a misnomer. LSD-style hallucinations are overwhelmingly visual in nature (not auditory) and are almost never threatening in nature. Perhaps most importantly, subjects who have ingested hallucinogenic compounds are typically aware that what they are seeing is not real, but a perceptual illusion. Indeed, schizophrenics in remission who have taken LSD report that they can clearly tell the difference between the two states. So it appears that Dr. Crane’s hallucinogen would not have the effects that are shown throughout the latter half of the movie: the drug onset is unlikely, the route of administration is atypical, and most importantly, the effects are wrong. Even if we suppose he’s using DMT, which can be smoked and has a rapid onset, it can’t possibly be the drug in question, because the time course of it’s effects are very rapid (over in 20-30 minutes, earning it the nickname, the businessman’s trip), and remember, poor Carmine Falcone is completely, irreversibly insane. It appears to me that one of two possibilities is likely. Perhaps the screenwriters jumped on the idea of the bad LSD trip for the basis of their idea without doing any research to see if it made any sense, or maybe, somewhere in the process, a studio exec made the decision that all this scientific junk was too complicated and that a hallucinogen was a simple concept that everyone was familiar with (if inaccurately so) and could understand.
What’s especially ridiculous about this scientific shortcutting is that there are certain drugs of abuse that actually can cause psychotic-like hallucinations. Several drugs can cause hallucinations that are indistinguishable from other causes of psychotic hallucinations; most notably, these drugs include phencyclidine (PCP), cocaine, and amphetamine. These drug-induced psychotic breaks usually occur when the drug is taken at a mid- to high-level dose, especially in chronic, long-term users who have developed tolerance to their drug of choice.
In fact, PCP, commonly known as angel dust, would have been a much better fit for Batman Begins than hallucinogens. PCP is classified as a dissociative anesthetic, and although it has a high potential for abuse, it is associated with a number of negative affective (emotional) reactions, including fear and intense feelings of isolation. It is usually smoked (inhaled) and has a quick onset (2-5 minutes). Critically, high doses can cause the psychotic hallucinations that the movie is portraying, and even higher doses can cause coma and death. Lastly, the receptor distribution of the sigma-1 PCP receptor includes a high density in limbic system, a group of structures in the brain that are important in emotion, and is also the site of the amygdala, which is important in fear and aggression, the perfect brain area for Dr. Crane to exploit.