The Best of Libertarian Cinema

Equilibrium

Christian Bale

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Equilibrium:  This is a great and often overlooked sci-fi film.  It stars Christian Bale, Taye Diggs, and Emily Watson.  Welcome to the future.  Justice Louis Brandeis said, "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."  In this possible future, the do-gooder muckety-mucks decided that emotions are what get us into trouble.  Wars, theft, murder - all brought to us by that nasty little human frailty: emotion.

So, very much keeping with the themes of Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World, this future is one in which every citizen takes a pill - Prozium - every morning to deaden their emotions.  People who don't take these pills are sense offenders.  They are hunted down and executed by an elite squad known as clerics, who not only kill the guilty, but destroy everything that could lead to emotions - books, movies, art, pornography. 

What's cool about these clerics is that they practice close-quarters firearms combat like martial arts, crafting and perfecting gun katas, which anticipate and counter the moves of nearby enemy combatants.  So, you see Jet Li style moves with guns instead of fists and an intensity that rivals the first Matrix.  I've never seen anything like it.

The plot centers around the baddest motherfucker in the future, the uber-cleric, John Preston, who has just accidentally missed a dose of his mellow pills and suddenly sees a technicolor world.  Havoc ensues, ending with one of the best payoffs in action flick history.

This film has strong libertarian themes.