If that isn’t Kurt Wimmer’s message in this cerebral action flick, it sure comes along for the ride.
What is almost unique about this plot is that it features enforced psychiatric (mind altering) drugging.
Religionists have devolved into “clerics,” super-SWAT operatives capable of taking out any number of “sense violators” with a mathematically based gun-wielding form of martial arts taught only to the elite. Enter Christian Bale as John Preston, Cleric First Class. It’s his job, with his underling storm troopers, to enforce daily self-medication with the wonder drug of choice, yes, Prosium II. perhaps Prosium I produced too many suicides, we don’t find out, but we do know that reading poetry, keeping paintings, or even other reminders of the pre-apocalyptic past results in either being shot up by the “Gestapo” or being taken off to the ovens (really). Even puppies are a no-no.
Preston’s conquests are a breathtaking display of martial arts shoot-em-up reminiscent of The Matrix. There is an underground, suppressed waifs just like us who evade the system and attempt to maintain sanity against the increasingly high-tech incursion of the thought police. Urban battles between the drugged police and the emoting rebels are the movie’s second best feature.
We soon see the hero’s Prosium glaze begin to wither against the strain of having turned in both his wife (in the past) and his partner Partridge (Sean Bean) for emotion violation. He begins to hide his doses, and as the drug leaves, so does sanity return. When one of his arrests turns into a love interest, her demise proves too much and he becomes dedicated to the destruction of the social order which he had once obeyed.
What is the only other movie (this humble author recalls) to feature enforced psychiatric drug use? It was written and directed by George Lucas: THX 1138.
Equilibrium also has bedfellows in “Fahrenheit 451,” “Rollerball” and “The Matrix.”
It impressed me as the harbinger of a possible future if we do not change our dependence on chemical solutions to so many of our societal problems. It has been estimated that six million school children are on ritalin today. Could that be because they are too emotional? For their teachers?
It’s an entertaining and thought-provoking movie with a big-time cast. So why did one web site say it was playing in only 20 cities on a total of 301 screens, about ten percent of what one would expect?
Give this one three out of four, vials or assault rifles as you wish. But go see it. Before it’s gone.
Copyright (c) by Barclay Bean, 2002