Flick Picks, 6.0

Hello Readers, Boog here, with the sixth installment of Flick Picks, and a few announcements as to the format of what this review segment shall become, and some new things on the way. First, Flick Picks, for me, will usually be films I haven't seen before, or ones I have not seen very often, so that opinions on them will be fresh, and hopefully, entertaining. That said, I plan on implementing a kind of 'milestone reward' system for myself, so that occasionally I get to review something extremly fun for me to do. I will be starting that milestone system next week, as every seventh Flick Pick from here on out will become the Guilty Pleasures edition. Movies that I love, that are just downright horrible and stupid. I also have a milestone planned for every twentieth review, but I will get to that when it arrives. Second, I am wroking on two new segments, one on Music, titled CDreams, and one on Books, titled PageBurners. I have the subjects for the first review for each segment, I am now in the stages of compiling my notes and trying to make some sort of sense out of them. These new segments will have no set schedule, as Flick Picks will still be my main focus. But I felt that I am starting to get the hang of this review thing, as it were, and could therefore handle the extra workload, and provide more entrainment for you, the reader, while providing some insight into myself, my process, and my opinions.

Now, with all that out of the way, today I will bring you one of the better little action movies Christian Bale has ever done, and most of you probably don't even know it exists. He's since done better (the Nolan Batman films), but this little gem should really be watched. I'm talking about a film called Equilibrium.
Some of you are now going, "wait, this was in 2002? Why haven't I seen it?" First of, it had made it's money back overseas in DVD sales before it was released here, so the studios (Miramax and Dimension), opted for a smaller US theatrical release, so as not to potentially lose money. And it probably would have, for here is a list of films that the stars and side characters of this one were in that same year:
Chicago(Taye Diggs), Red Dragon, Punch-Drunk Love (Emily Watson), Reign of Fire, Laurel Canyon (Christian Bale), Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers (Sean Bean), Dog Soldiers (Sean Pertwee), Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (Angus MacFadyen). So, as you can see, it had a lot of competition that year, some of it even Oscar-winning. So it's understandable that this movie ended up being lost in the shuffle. But it's damn entertaining, so I'm gonna go into it in detail. If you hadn't figure out the SPOILERS by now, oh well.

First of all, the production values look stellar here, as this film was made for $20 million, and if you went by the sets and the body count(236, btw), not to mention the costumes, props and bits of CGI, would probably have guessed anywhere from a $35 to $45 million budget. The script and plot really want to bash out a good deal of symbolism here, so the amount of detail that goes into the sets and costumes here is very refreshing. The main city, where most of the film takes place, has a flag that is has the same colors as the National Socialist Party, and is even just a slightly modified version of it, turning the swastika into more of a cross. All the building have a religious, temple feel to them, the people dressed simply monk-like, in drab robes of gray or blue, no exceptions, except for the police, who wear black, and usually add some sort of long coat, and leather gloves. The conformity and sameness is bland at first, but then starts to become creepy, jarring, heavy. It really helps the plot along, giving you a sense of just how far into madness this society has gone. The police is where the symbolism ramps into high gear, first the regular forces, dressed to rather resemble Nazi stormtroopers, at least that's the aesthetic that comes to my mind when I see them, faceless, black-suited apparitions carrying assault rifles, gunning down everything in their path. Except for when the real badasses are called. These police, I should mention, are a direct military arm of the government of the area, a government that calls itself the Tetragrammaton. For those that don't know, the word means 'a word of four letters', and is a direct reference from Judaism for the name of God, as it was spelled 'YHWH', or "Yahweh', as it was pronounced. Scared of this Government yet? But back to the matter at hand. The true badasses of this police force are the Grammaton Clerics, which are really the idea this whole movie was built around. They are not just badasses, they are badasses that know what I'm going to call Gun Fu for the rest of this review. It's a great idea, and it's used to great effect in the film, driving some pretty damn awesome action choreography.

Gun Fu, is called the 'Gun Katas' by the movie, and both names are entirely accurate. It's basically a martial art, just one designed with guns and bullet trajectories as it's focus, using statistics and physics to place user in a position where his bullets can kill the most enemies, while remaining as safe as he can be from return fire. Like I said, great idea, and it's what the film is built around, so while not exactly accurate, or possible in a realistic sense, they at least give it an explanation, which in turn gives a reason why Christian Bale's character is this film is the supreme special badass that he is. So I say, just go with it, and enjoy the film. The action is pretty constant in this movie, each break for dialogue and plot heavy bits being relatively short, the longest being a ten-minute bit in which there is still some running and other small stunt work, but I digress. The film is chock full of scenes for the sake of symbolic visuals, with fire, religions, and churches being prominent metaphors for power and its abuse, and plenty of sun and tears as metaphors for purification and rebirth, with an especially potent scene involving Beethoven's 9th Symphony.

One note about the music. Other than the Beethoven track mentioned above, most of it is techno-rock fueling the action sequences in the background. Nothing special, but it gets the job done. The writing, one plot hole aside, is very solid, giving a complete story, nor frills or from left field surprises, it's science fiction action at its core, giving a well done three dimensional villain, a hero that becomes three dimensional by the end of the film, and a standard story with enough new wrinkles through the Gun Fu and religious overtones to make it fresh and engaging. This kind of story has been done before, but here it is done well. The dialogue, due the heavy symbolism of the plot and setting, is a bit hammy, but powerful at times, and most of the scenery chewing comes from the villains and side characters, so it's all in fun, and doesn't detract from the enjoyment factor. The plot is a basic sci-fi paradise gone wrong story, with the city of Libria, being where most humans live after the third World War, and the populace taking a drug named Prozium, which is designed to suppress all emotion, as it has been decided that hate, anger, jealousy, while also being the path to the Dark Side of the Force, is also the root of all Wars and crime, especially Rape and Murder, and should therefore be erased from humanity. The drug also suppresses joy, love, compassion, and everything else the Care Bears stand for, but, it the minds of the ones in power, this is a small price to pay for the ultimate peace. The story then revolves around one the senior Grammaton Clerics, John Preston, and what happens to him, and the entire city-state of Libria, after he accidentally misses a dose of Prozium, and during the course of an investigation, finds his emotions, and therefore his humanity. This part is played extremely well by Bale, as he opens the movie being very cold, distant, exacting to the world around him, no compromise, no mercy. His first partner is played by Sean Bean in a side role that is given less than twenty total minutes of screen time, but he does well with what he's given, dying in a pathos riddled slow-mo shot in an abandoned church, quoting poetry by William Butler Yeats. Taye Diggs then enters the story as Brandt, the new partner, acting as a kind of mirror for Preston, being new to the Cleric profession, showing a kind of hero worship for the uncompromising nature of Bale's character. Soon after comes the missed dose, and the love interest of sorts, Mary O'Brian, played by Emily Watson. She's best with strong willed female leads, and she continues to be good with them here, giving out a good performance with a lot of heavy handed contempt for the system, and Preston in general, as he is the one who killed Sean Bean, who, we find out, was in a relationship with her. Ouch. She slowly comes to realize Preston's unique situation, as he gets her to see the guilt and grief he has over the death of his partner, and also, her.

While this is happening, we get some scenes involving the villains of the piece, one Father, played by Sean Pertwee, as the 1984-esque voice of the people, constantly droning on from various screens all over the city about how destructive mankind was in the past, and why it's so important for Libria to be the way it is now, to prevent it from happening again. The other major villain, is played by Angus MacFadyen, who most of you will remember played Robert the Bruce in Braveheart, and some of you may remember played the villain Komodo from Warriors of Virtue. You know, the one with the kangaroos doing Kung Fu? Yeah, here he is doing plenty of scenery chewing, and does well as a bad guy, his plans not even being all that ambitious, just getting rid of the token resistance films like this always have, so that the perfect society he is in charge of running, remain safe, and in control. A little more on the action here, as I really do like the fight choreography in this film. The gunplay is rather awe inspiring, using the Gun Fu gimmick to make it seem almost supernatural at times. And the final battle between Bale and MacFadyen is just awesome, being a pistol duel between Gun Fu masters. One of my favorite final battles ever.

Now, on to the two problems most people may have with this movie. First, with 236 on screen deaths, of which Christian Bale's character is directly responsible for 118(that's exactly half, in case you were wondering), there is little to no blood in the movie at all. There are two reason for this: to keep the costs down, and to keep the rating down for a wider release. It gets kinda annoying at times for an action fan such as myself, to see so many bodies on the floor without the corresponding pools of blood underneath them, but eventually you get over it. Not to say that there isn't ANY blood, just that there's five instances of blood in this film at all, one in the opening sequence, and four within the last twenty minutes of film, leaving a large bloodless gap of dust squibs for about and hour and twenty minutes. And then there's the gun swap plot hole. There is a scene in the movie, that will flashback to another scene in the movie, that will make no sense whatsoever when it happens. This, unfortunately, is a flaw that comes directly from the director/writer, and ruins the movie for some people. However, the rest of the movie is very entertaining, and if you just ignore the plot hole when it shows up, the movie itself will make it irrelevant a few moments later, and you can enjoy the final showdown with glee. The only other thing I haven't mentioned is in the opening, where Dominic Purcell cameos. It was just before he got famous for the TV series John Doe, it's a rather small part, but you can see him with the long hair he had before he shaved it off for Blade: Trinity and Prison Break.

In closing, I really enjoy this film. The sets are haunting, the detail into the costumes and plot are just chilling, and most of all, you really feel for the main character, every scene with him adding a new layer to the overall character arc, making you sad when he is, and best of all, joyful when he succeeds. Go find this on DVD, netflix, wherever you can. This is one that no one should miss.