Equilibrium

Equilibrium is set in the future, in the dystopian city-state of Libria. The film explains how, in the early years of the 21st century, a devastating Third World War breaks out, the impact of which brings civilizations across the planet to their knees. After the war ends, world leaders fear that the human race cannot possibly survive a Fourth World War, and so set about building a new society which is free of conflict.
Believing that human emotion is responsible for man's inhumanity to man, the new leaders ban all materials deemed likely to stimulate strong emotions, including art, music, and literature. These materials are rated "EC-10" for "emotional content" (a reference to the MPAA film rating system), and are typically destroyed by immediate incineration. Furthermore, all citizens of Libria are required to take regular injections, called "intervals," of a liquid drug called Prozium, collected at the distribution centers known as "Equilibrium".
Plot
Libria is governed by the Tetragrammaton Council, which is led by a reclusive figurehead known as "Father". Father never interacts with anyone outside the ruling council, but his image is omnipresent throughout the city in a strong cult of personality. The Tetragrammaton Council strives to create identical lives for all Librians and uses its police state apparatus to enforce unity and conformity. At the pinnacle of Librian law enforcement are the Grammaton Clerics, who are trained in the deadly martial art of Gun Kata, an art which teaches users to predict the actions of opponents during firearm combat. The Clerics exist for the purpose of locating and destroying EC-10 materials and for pursuing, apprehending, and, if necessary, terminating "sense-offenders"—people guilty of feeling emotions.
Despite the efforts of the police and Clerics, a resistance movement exists in Libria, known as "The Underground". Members of this movement are responsible for terrorist activity against Libria, specifically against the Prozium factories. The leaders of the Underground believe that if they can disrupt the production and distribution of Prozium for a short period of time—even a single day—then the Librians will rise up and destroy the Tetragrammaton Council. The Underground operates within Libria itself, but also has contact with resistance groups residing in "The Nethers", the ruins of cities destroyed during World War III. These outsiders hoard objects and artifacts from the old society before World War III, including art and literature. Subsequently, they are the targets of Librian death squads composed of police and Clerics.
The city of Libria, 2072.
The film's protagonist, Grammaton Cleric First Class John Preston, is Libria's highest ranking cleric, and his success stems from his intuitive ability to identify sense-offenders. He is a widower whose wife was executed after being revealed to be a sense offender, leaving him with two children. After a raid on a group of resistance members in The Nethers, Preston notices that his partner, Grammaton Cleric First Class Errol Partridge, has personally taken a copy of the poems of Yeats under false pretenses. Preston discovers that Partridge has not turned the book over for destruction and follows him to a ruined cathedral in The Nethers, where Partridge talks of the loss of everything that makes them human, most notably the right to experience emotions. When Preston argues that emotions lead to jealousy, hatred, and destruction. After quoting Yeat's poem 'He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven', Partridge admits that it is a heavy price to pay, but one worth paying. Partridge then reaches for his gun, forcing Preston to shoot him. Shortly afterwards, Preston accidentally breaks the vial of his morning dose of Prozium, and begins to experience emotions.
Preston is assigned a new partner, the career-conscious Brandt, who claims to have similarly perceptive abilities in identifying sense offenders. Following a standard police raid on a Librian woman, Mary O'Brian, who has stopped taking Prozium, his emotional confusion is exacerbated during her interrogation. Subsequent attacks and raids into The Nethers expose Preston to illegal objects salvaged from the ruined cities. His fledgling emotions are further stimulated by seeing the sunrise over the skyscrapers of Libria and hearing the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. He first acts out of emotion when he makes an excuse not to execute a puppy in The Nethers, saying it should be tested for disease, and "if there's a pandemic spreading in the Nethers, Libria should know about it". Preston has by now ceased taking Prozium and is forced to try and maintain his monotone and emotionless facade in front of his son and the increasingly suspicious Brandt. Over the course of the film, Preston's behavior increasingly mirrors that of Partridge in the beginning, even to the point of repeated dialogue.
Soon, Preston is involved in illegal activities, including regular visits to the Nethers. During one visit, he is forced to kill several Librian policemen. Because of the deaths of these policemen, the Tetragrammaton Council steps up its war against the Underground, mounting more raids and ordering that unidentified persons found in the Nethers are "subject to summary destruction". Brandt, having seen Preston re-arranging his desk (signaling a dislike of conformity) and refusing to personally execute resistance members during a raid in the Nethers, becomes suspicious, Preston is summoned before Vice-Counsel DuPont, a high-ranking member of the Tetragrammaton Council. Preston explains that he is attempting to infiltrate the Resistance in order to destroy it. DuPont tells him that he has heard rumors of a cleric attempting to join the Resistance (a reference to Preston's own unreported activities), and Preston promises to find this traitor. Preston unwittingly makes contact with the Underground, who inform him that they have been watching his progress for some time. He agrees to assassinate Father, an act which will create enough confusion for the Underground to detonate bombs in Libria's Prozium factories and hopefully bring down the Tetragrammaton Council. However, after watching Mary O'Brian's execution in Libria's furnaces, combined with remembering his wife's execution, causes Preston to weep uncontrollably. During this clear demonstration of strong emotion, he is arrested for sense-offense by Brandt.
Brandt brings Preston before DuPont, claiming that he has captured the traitor and accusing Preston of not taking Prozium, killing a police patrol in the Nethers, and conspiring with the Underground to assassinate Father and destroy the Council. Preston, however, turns the tables on Brandt. During a previous raid in the Nethers, Preston secretly swapped guns with Brandt, and so informs the Council that the policemen were killed with the weapon currently in Brandt's possession. Brandt realizes that he has been set up and tries to inform DuPont, but is taken away for execution on the orders of DuPont. Apparently cleared, Preston is released. He returns home to destroy his stashed Prozium before police find it, and is confronted by his young son. Preston fears that his son will betray him to the police for not taking Prozium, but he in fact reveals to Preston that he and his sister have not taken Prozium for some time, and has already hidden his cache of Prozium. Relieved, Preston goes ahead with his plan. As part of an elaborate plot formed with the Underground, the leaders of the Resistance turn themselves in to Preston, who persuades DuPont to grant him an audience with Father, during which he intends to assassinate Father and spark off a general uprising against the Librian government.
Preston arrives for his audience with Father, and is advised that as a security measure, he is to have no weapons in Father's presence and is required to take a lie detector test, which he had first encountered with the Underground. Brandt appears and Preston realizes it is a trap. Via a telescreen, Father speaks to Preston, revealing that he has been aware of Preston's sense-offense, and has staged Brandt's arrest in order to lull Preston into a false sense of security and allow him to think that his assassination scheme can go ahead. The face on the telescreen changes, revealing the face of Vice-Council DuPont, who explains that the real Father died years before, and that the Tetragrammaton Council elected DuPont as the new Head of State. He has simply used the image of Father as a political figurehead.
Preston, however, immediately regains control of his spiraling emotions and, using pistols that he has concealed beneath his ceremonial uniform, kills the guards surrounding him. He makes his way through the corridors of the Tetragrammaton Headquarters, killing several dozen guards, until he encounters DuPont and Brandt at DuPont's office, a richly decorated room which reveals that Libria's ruling elite are sense offenders themselves. A sword fight ensues in which Preston quickly dispatches DuPont's elite bodyguards and slices Brandt's face off. Preston and DuPont engage in a final hand-to-hand gun-kata duel with pistols, and Preston eventually manages to disarm DuPont. Weaponless, DuPont tries to bargain for his life with Preston, arguing that Preston, a human being with emotions, cannot kill him, another human being with emotions. He asks if it is a price worth paying. Remembering the execution, Preston replies quoting Partridge: "I pay it gladly", and shoots DuPont. Preston then destroys the telescreen propaganda machines which broadcast across Libria, and the device which projects holographic images of Father. Realizing that the Tetragrammaton Council is faced with a crisis, the Underground detonates bombs in Libria's Prozium factories.
The film ends from different views: Preston's son smiling from his school desk as the Prozium factories explode, Preston's daughter playing at home with the rescued puppy while the telescreens shut down, the leaders of the Underground cheering at their execution as they hear the bombs explode across Libria, and Preston permits himself a rare smile, watching through the windows of DuPont's office as the citizens of Libria riot in the streets, slaughtering police and Clerics, signaling the collapse of the Tetragrammaton Council.
Themes - Gun Kata
Gun Kata is a fictional gun-fighting martial art discipline that is a significant part of the film. It is based upon the premise that, given the positions of the participants in a gun battle, the trajectories of fire are statistically predictable. By pure memorization of the positions, one can fire at the most likely location of an enemy without aiming at him/her in the traditional sense of pointing a gun at a specific target. By the same token, the trajectories of incoming fire are also statistically predictable, so by assuming the appropriate stance, one can keep one's body clear of the most likely path of enemy bullets.
The Gun Kata shown in Equilibrium is a hybrid mix of Kurt Wimmer's own style of Gun Kata (which he invented in his backyard) and the martial arts style of the choreographer. They disagreed on the appropriate form of Gun Kata, with Kurt Wimmer advocating a more smooth, flowing style and the choreographer supporting a more rigid style. Much of the Gun Kata seen in the movie is based on the choreographer's style (movements are rigid and rapid). Kurt Wimmer's Gun Kata is dispersed sparsely throughout the movie, most notably in the intro scene with the silhouetted man (played by Wimmer himself) practicing with dual pistols. Wimmer's intended form of Gun Kata can be better seen in UltraViolet.[citation needed]
Themes - Prozium
Prozium is a fictional liquid drug which suppresses strong emotions, creating a sedate and conformist society. The loss of emotions is a heavy price, but it is considered to be one paid gladly in exchange for the elimination of war and crime. The name could be considered a portmanteau of Prozac and Valium, two psychoactive drugs. Librium is another drug with relaxant effects, often used to treat severe alcohol or drug withdrawal. Prozium was to be originally called Librium (thus the nation of Libria), this was changed to Prozium when it was discovered that Librium - ironically - was already an existing drug.[citation needed]
Themes - Tetragrammaton
The four Hebrew letters יהוה are often collectively called the Tetragrammaton (from the Greek τετραγράμματον, meaning 'four-letter [word]').[5] These four letters are often transliterated as YHWH, JHWH, YHVH or JHVH, pronounced Yahweh, which is one transliteration of the Hebrew "יַהְוֶה", which, in turn, is a vocalization of the name of God in the Bible.