In the wake of The Matrix, it was unsurprisingly fair game for any kind of action/sci-fi that clothed its anti-establishment leanings in long black coats and dark sunglasses. However, while none could truly match the majesty of the Wachowski’s cyberpunk masterpiece, every now and then you’d get a movie that followed in its impressive wake that managed to stand out from the crowd and one such title was Kurt Wimmer’s Equilibrium.
Eschewing virtual reality and killer computer programs, Equilibrium leant hard on Orwellian dystopia and mixed in a vast amount of funky martial arts and eccentric gun work, the movie not only strived to be something a little different from the norm, but also gave us a pre-Batman Christian Bale indulging in a bit of ground and pound before he traded in a long, black priest coat for pointy ears and a cape.
After typically heated emotions led to World War III, the survivors decided that all of mankinds ills could be cured if we simply just gave up on those pesky emotions that lead us to do the damaging things we do. Hence Libria was born, a totalitarian city-state that has suppressed all human feelings via a drug known as Prozium II and who enforce it via the fascist means of the Grammaton Clerics who stamp out “Sense Offenders” with lethal efficiency.
One of the most decorated Clerics is John Preston, a man who vehemently believes in the cause even though it cost him his wife and mother to his two children. However, after the latest successful raid against a terrorist organisation known as the Underground that tries to protect art and literature from being eradicated, Preston is troubled by the fact that one of his fellow clerics has succumbed to emotions and has been leafing through a book of poetry by W. B. Yeats instead of incinerating it. This seems to starts the intensely dedicated Cleric on something of a downward spiral that only gets worse when he misses the daily dose of his mandatory, feeling-dulling drug and comes into contact with Sense Offender Mary O’Brian who gets him to question his life choices even further.
This proves to be something of a conundrum as living in such a totalitarian environment means there’s always someone willing to grass you in for the greater good and while Preston struggles to contain these burgeoning, new emotions, he’ll have to try and keep a lid on them as everyone from the suspicious fellow Cleric, Brahnt, to his own son, could report him at at any moment.
As things start to unravel and Preston is swept up with more conflicting emotions than a puberty hotline, the Cleric realises that he may have to take on the powers that be if hes ever going to preserve these powerful new experiences.
Equilibrium has always been something of a curiosity to me. Essentially George Orwell for dummies, Wimmer overloads his dystopian opus with less subtlety than performing chiropractic work with a sock full of snooker balls as he belabours the point that – surprise surprise – fascism is bad. I guess, when you’re dealing with any flick that deals with the nasty business of oppressive, murderous, Nazi-esque, government regimes, it’s virtually impossible to over-exaggerate considering we have the horrors of the Holocaust sitting in our history books. However, Equilibrium certainly tries its best and thus we get a futuristic world made up entirely of oppressive, concrete greys and the sight of Sean Pertwee’s controlling Father spouting doctrines from the side of zeppelins and screens everywhere. While the thought of being lectured to by the giant, projected face of Pertwee 24/7 isn’t intimidating enough, the fact that our hero for the entirety of this endeavor is essentially the movie’s version of an SS Officer is fairly creepy when you think about it.
However, the true wonder of sci-fi/fantasy is that this is precisely the sort of thing it was made for, to re-skin reality to make a commentary on life in general and while Equilibrium hardly breaks the mold in the fascism-is-bad stakes, you have to give it credit for trying.
One thing that certainly helps matters is that its cast is deliriously over qualified for what is, in essence, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil meets John Woo’s Hard Boiled and the emotionally constipated John Preston seems to be the perfect connective tissue between the dead-eyed, non-personality of American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman and Bruce Wayne’s iconic vigilante. Not to crap on Wimmer’s script, direction or vision (all of which are nicely satisfying), but Bale elevates the more sillier aspects of the story into something quite effecting; whether breaking down at first hearing classical music or desperately trying to save a puppy from a machine gun wielding death squad he simply fucking nails it and the presence of Samantha Morton, Sean Bean, Taye Diggs and William Fichtner only gives the movie way more credibility than its pulpy leanings would suggest.
Let’s not split hairs here, large parts of Equilibrium either simply don’t scan or just utterly ridiculous, if Brandt’s ladder climbing antagonist is as dosed up on Prozium II along with everyone else, why does he visibly smirk and grin every time he scores a point on his villainous score card? If the Underground value self-expression, why do their ring of leaders wear identical, drab, matching boiler suits? Why is everyone really shit at hiding the fact that they’re hoarding art, records and books despite the fact that it’s a capital crime?
Thanks to the performances and the fact that it’s all presented in such an ironically, dead-pan style, it’s kind of impossible not to be drawn into a world where someone would conceivably shoot you in the face for owning a copy of Baby’s Got Back by Sir Mix-A-Lot on compact disc. On top of this, there are a few scenes that legitimately hit home as you grow to be genuinely terrified of Preston’s unreadable young son as he questions his Father’s day to day activities, or as Preston races to stop O’Brian’s execution – but the real thing Equilibrium contains that is required viewing for action nuts is the brand new fighting style it originated that Carrie’s the name Gun Kata. Equal parts ludicrous and genius, it’s essentially a fluid martial art that requires you to shoot guns instead of punch and despite often looking like two dudes playing pat-a-cake with high calibre firearms, it’s also tremendous fun as Bale predictably hurls himself into it with aplomb.
All logic points towards Equilibrium being a mediocre, over-stylized, overly serious romp that shamelessly rode on the long, black coat tales of Neo and co., however, due to some heavy lifting by its cast and some innovative action, Equilibrium finds way more balance than you’d expect. Yet while more of a pleasant surprise than an outright revelation, this movie still manages to nail you just hard enough in order for you to feel it.
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