Why's the black guy there? He's not even a main character.
Father: So we have created a new arm of the law: The Grammaton Cleric, whose sole task it is to seek out and eradicate the true source of man's inhumanity to man - his ability to feel.
"This isn't a plot hole, this is a plot canyon!"
—
Film Brain in his review of the film. Many critics see things the same way.
Ultra-violent (although
surprisingly bloodless) sci-fi action film that, depending on who you ask, either rips off or brilliantly homages absolutely every great work of dystopian fiction ever written. Often also accused of ripping off
The Matrix due to its similar aesthetic, although it is completely free of wire work (according to the director) and of
Bullet Time (though not
slow motion). Starred a pre-
Batman Christian Bale as John Preston, often
cited
as having one of the highest personal on-screen body counts of any film character.
Notable, among other things, for having possibly the single coolest one-on-one gun battle ever filmed.
At a range of two feet and slicing Brandt's face clean off.
Credited for inventing the
Gun Kata trope.
Provides examples of:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: The katana used in the final confrontation.
- After The End
- Anticlimax Boss: The epic battle between Preston and Brandt... isn't.
- Authority Equals Asskicking (DuPont)
- Awesome But Impractical: Anyone who's ever been trained in actual small-arms combat tactics will tell you right off the bat that Gun Kata would never work in Real Life.
- Anyone who's ever seen a gunfight in a movie can tell you it doesn't work. Even in movies people usually respond to what's actually happening and go for cover.
- Awesome By Analysis: Preston is confronted by a hallway of machine-gun Mooks. He throws two clips of ammunition halfway down the hallway, then starts shooting, running out of ammo (and other reloads) exactly where he dropped the two clips, reloads and continues gunning 'em down.
- Badass Longcoat: Preston himself, and the Clerics in general
- Batman Gambit: Everything was engineered by DuPont so Preston would capture the Resistance so he could try to kill Father.
- Bloodless Carnage
- Bloodstained Glass Windows: see above for perplexed musing
- Boring Invincible Hero: Mostly averted. True, Preston doesn't lose or get more than a few cuts throughout the movie, but it's never boring
- It's arguably the entire point - the real battle is elsewhere.
- Clean Cut: HE CUTS A DUDE'S FUCKING FACE OFF!
- Computer Equals Monitor
- Contract On The Hitman
- Death By Cameo
- Decoy Protagonist: at first it seems like Partridge would be the hero of the story.
- Diagonal Cut
- Dystopia
- Dramatic Irony: The culmination of the film arguably involves Preston, an agent of the resistence, attaining, without Prozium, what the Tetragrammaton has been seeking since its founding - total emotional mastery. Unfortunately for them, this seems to manifest itself in the ability to channel volcanic levels of anger into supreme levels of precision ass-kicking.
- Emotions Vs Stoicism: What Prozium is designed to do, block out emotions so that there would be no more wars, pain, or conflict
- The Evils Of Free Will
- Faceless Goons: the Sweepers
- Fridge Brilliance: At first, Preston seems like an average action hero — cool, but generic. Then you realize the importance of the lines about him giving up his emotions to kill the Big Bad; he's making a personal sacrifice he makes so others don't have to. Indeed, he probably doesn't want anyone to look up to him as a hero.
- Fridge Logic: In Real Life, drugs that suppress emotions take weeks to have an effect, or for the effect to fade. Missing a dose should have no noticeable effect.
- Maybe, maybe not. I see two explanations (other than "it's a movie") for Preston's speedy transition: 1) It's to show emotion is powerful; 2) I know two people who have been on dozens of anti-depressants, their effects start to be noticeable literally overnight and their withdraw happened just as fast
- Librian architectural design apparently makes room for hollows between apartment buildings, conveniently large enough to act as well-decorated warehouses for contraband (complete with electricity!)
- He became a murderous rogue agent before switching guns with Taye Diggs' character. Even if you argue that Diggs getting arrested was just a sting, why did Bale's character even think for a second the plan would work since quite clearly killed the guards with his own gun. This barely even counts as fridge logic simply because it's so obvious diring the film. As a matter of fact it's such a moronic error in logic that you almost question your own memory, because no-one would let a plot hole that huge slip by... would they? Step forward Kurt Wimmer.
- Preston gave Brandt the gun that he committed the murders with. So when they "traced" the gun used, it's the one Brandt was holding. Investigators could reasonably assume that Brandt stole Preston's gun before the murders in order to frame him. Possession is 9/10ths the law, and Brandt is caught holding the murder weapon.
- Word Of God is that it's not supposed to make sense! In early versions of the script it was much more clear-cut, and even explained fully, but huge amounts of the story were axed because Wimmer preferred the new arrangement of scenes and explicitly didn't care if this made the plot unable to follow itself.
- Genre Savvy: DuPont tells Preston his plan while the latter is apparently unarmed and has several guards pointing guns at him. There's another room filled with even more guards between Preston and his office. It just happened that there weren't enough of them.
- The Government
- Government Drug Enforcement: Prozium is this all over
- Gun Kata: created for this movie, used by others since
- Guns Akimbo
- Gunslinger, The
- Heroic Bloodshed
- Heroic Sociopath: Justified, and arguably deconstructed.
- Hey Its That Guy: Batman is the lead, Robert the Bruce is his boss, Lincoln Burrows and Mahone from Prison Break are both Resistance leaders, Boromir/Alec Trevelyan gets killed early and then Brian Conley turns up.
- Hoist By His Own Petard: They originally planned for Preston to be a Sacrificial Lamb to bait the resistance leaders. They foolishly underestimate his skills however.
- Ho Yay: Preston and Brandt.
- HSQ: Quite high.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Justified. Or Hand Waved, depending on your interpretation.
- Kick The Dog: The scene with the Sweepers killing the dogs.
- Knight Templar
- La Resistance
- Man Behind The Curtain, The: Brandt
- Media Watchdog: what the dystopia is all about
- Mobstacle Course: Preston does this at least twice, one time without a real purpose besides just wanting to be alone.
- Murder By Cremation
- Offhand Backhand: Pretty much any shot Preston makes falls under this trope, since Gun Kata eliminates the need to actually aim at mooks.
- Oh Crap: The technician administering Preston's polygraph test has one of these right before the large amount of ass-kicking commences.
- Opening Monologue
- Other Darrin, The: Preston's wife was played by two actresses
- Pistol Whipping: The scene where Preston tries to let the sense-offenders go.
- Pose Of Supplication: Preston after losing Mary.
- Roaring Rampage Of Revenge: Minus the "Roaring" part
- Rule Of Cool
- Rule Of Symbolism
- Same Story Different Names: Writer-director Kurt Wimmer's follow-up project Ultraviolet rehashed most of the basic elements of this film. William Fichtner even appears in both.
- Shoot Out The Lock: Subverted via almost-realistic portrayal.
- Shoot The Dog: Done quite literally
- Single Stroke Battle
- Straw Hypocrite: Du Pont isn't on the Prozium. And given the sheer amount of scenery he chewed it strains credulity that Brandt was either.
- These Hands Have Killed
- Tranquil Fury: Three words: "Not without incident."
- Utopia Justifies The Means
- Villain Protagonist: Preston starts as a servant of the Librian government, but eventually pulls a Heel Face Turn.
- Xanatos Sucker
- You Should Know This Already: People like to throw around the line "Not Without Incident" like it's a party favor.
- Well, considering it's only a spoiler in context and it's the most ridiculously badass Crowning Moment Of Awesome in the entire movie...
