I first heard abut Equilibrium when Jay Leno mentioned it in his monologue. Some of the reviews claimed that it was derivative of Orwell’s 1984 and Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. I saw that The New York Times critic was dismissing it out of hand, saying it “could be stupider only if it were longer”—and I therefore knew it must have some redeeming virtues. It was playing at only a few movie theaters in Los Angeles, so I wondered why Jay Leno thought it was worth slipping into his monologue in the first place.

Well, Equilibrium rocks. Stupid? Dull? The goddam critics.

A near-future post World War III omnipotent state, whose leader is called Father, and whose enforcers might be considered a priestcraft of dark Jedi Knights who practice a handgun-based martial art called gun kata, drugs the population to eliminate the cause of war: human feeling. The title is a pun: the real-world pharmaceutical, Librium, is a sedative and antidepressant. In Equilibrium, anything which might stimulate human feeling—art, music, decoration. even puppies and family photos—is illegal, and “sense crime offenders” are summarily executed. There is an underground. and there is a rebel infiltrated into the priestcraft.

Derivative of 1984 and Fahrenheit 451? How about saying inspired by them—and also drawing ideas from the entire field of dystopian literature including Huxley’s Brave New World, Levin’s This Perfect Day, Heinlein’s “If This Goes On—,” and maybe even an image or two from my own Alongside Night? It is explicitly and uncompromisingly individualistic. It also draws from Clint Eastwood movies and martial arts movies—with, of course, a nod to The Matrix. It is as politically incorrect as you can get. The totalitarian state is eliminating all individual freedom, using as its excuse that by eliminating feeling it is eliminating warmongering totalitarians like Hitler and Stalin.

The subliminal worry of the liberals seeing this film would be that gun kata (as unrealistically as it is choreographed in this movie) might catch on with the public and become the ultimate defender of personal freedom...as it ultimately is portrayed to be in this movie.

Of course the mainstream critics, with the notable exception of Roger Ebert who also gave a rave to Waco: The Rules of Engagement, hate its guts. They understand that gun kata is aimed right at their quisling underbellies.

This is the first filmic dystopian masterpiece since the end of the Cold War, and the first of the new millennium. It should be in consideration for the Prometheus Award.