Angels and Demons and The Dark Knight

Rented Angels and Demons and The Dark Knight the other weekend and was surprised by the similarities between their endings. Both films showcase idyllic characters who have fallen from grace (one by his own free will, the other pushed) in their pursuit of the greater good. And at the end of both films, the powers that be use their influence to ensure that both characters are venerated, in order to avoid disrupting their elevated cultural image. Thus, the public within both films avoids falling into a cynical abyss by not having their heroes seriously defamed, while their audience falls into a cynical abyss after having been provided with a direct representation of historical manipulation, a direct representation which calls into question the saintly status of their inveterate icons. Of course they're both simply films so their demonic destabilization of the established order of things can be dismissed angelically as pure fiction. But the interactions between these two narrative levels forge an interesting balance, subtly illuminating the fictional aspects of these non-fictional dark knights.