Atlas Shrugged

Atlas Shrugged

I feel like I’ve been throwing warm up tosses for nine innings and I don’t have a ballgame to pitch. I was all set to review “Atlas Shrugged.” I was primed for a critique of Ayn Rand’s philosophy that could run longer than the movie. To this day, her philosophy is still boiled down to: “I got mine, Jack.”

But there are people who take Ayn Rand much more seriously than comic-book fans take “Watchmen.” And let me tell you if you think a review of “Watchmen” coming from a guy who had never read the comic book provoked torrents of learned and sarcastic lectures on the pathetic failings of his critique.

Well, they make those guys look like members of the Who Dat Nation.

And now it comes down to this this movie. This is the most anticlimactic non-event since Geraldo Rivera broke into Al Capone’s vault. Rand’s novel was published in 1957, and anyone who has thought about making a film of it ever since should have noticed that there is not one single recognizable human being in her book.

So what we basically have here is a movie about a bunch of business meetings in luxurious retro leather-and-brass board rooms and offices, and restaurants and bedrooms that look like they were borrowed from a hotel chain only known as the Robber Baron Arms.

And everybody drinks during these meetings. More wine is poured and sipped in this movie than at a convention of oenophiliacs.

The dialogue consists almost entirely of passionate speeches about supply side economics made by characters who appear to have been cryptically named after Wall Street Journal editorial page staff members (if not always by actors capable of memorizing four-word phrases). There are conversations in English after which I sometimes found myself asking, “What did they just say?”

I suspect only someone very familiar with Rand’s 1,168-page doorstop could understand this movie, and I doubt they will be happy with it.

Most of the excitement centers on the tensile strength of steel. The story involves Dagny Taggart (Taylor Schilling), a young woman who controls a railroad company named Taggart Transcontinental (motto: “Ocean to Ocean”). She is a fearless and visionary entrepreneur, who is determined to use a revolutionary new steel to repair her train tracks. It’s a few years in the future.

America has become a land where “mediocrity” is the goal, and high-achieving individuals are the enemy. Laws have been passed prohibiting companies from owning other companies (a law that would prevent Bain Capital from investing in this film). Dagny’s new steel, which is produced by her sometime lover, Hank Rearden (Grant Bowler), has been legislated against because it’s better than other steels.

The Union of Railroad Engineers decides it will not operate Dagny’s trains. Just to show you how bad things have become, a government minister announces: “A tax will be applied to the state of Colorado, in order to equalize our national economy.” So you see how governments and unions are the enemy of visionary entrepreneurs.

But you’re thinking railroads? Yes, although airplanes exist in this future well, actually we never see any airplanes but I’m assuming they still exist even though everyone travels by train. When I was 6 my Aunt Martha brought me to Chicago to attend the great Railroad Fair of 1948 at which America’s rail companies celebrated their vision of the future that would soon blow past mass air transportation on its way to making us all take vacations on Mars.

Well, okay then. Suppose you’ve read the book, you’re a libertarian or an objectivist or whatever, and you love Ayn Rand. You’ve been waiting for this movie. My friend, were you ever disappointed? It’s not enough for a film to agree with you; in fact it should do so in the most inane and muddled manner possible. Maybe it should be entertaining?

There are really only five types of scenes: (1) people sitting around drinking in clubs and talking like they’re at work; (2) railroads; (3) limousines driving through destroyed cities and arriving at fancy buildings; (4) city skylines; (5) pretty Colorado landscapes. Oh, also a love scene that shows not just chests but ears too. The guy keeps his shirt on. Libertarians might find this disappointing I think they like rumpy-pumpy as much as anyone.

Oh yeah Wisconsin! Dagny and Hank ride blissfully through the American Heartland on Taggart’s new high-speed train before Hank suggests they take a detour to Wisconsin, where there was some kind of engine that ran on air or something but was suppressed by the state’s policies (the movie never clears this up). They drive there instead, which affords us beautiful shots of the Wisconsin desert landscape, which looks nice against those picturesque Wisconsin desert mountains we have all heard so much about. My advice to the filmmakers: If you want to use a desert, why don’t you just call it “New Mexico”?

“Atlas Shrugged,” we learn at the end of its 97 minutes, is merely Part 1! Characters frequentl repeat the phrase “Who is John Galt?” during these 97 minutes. A man in black who is always shot from behind so we can’t see his face even though he’s standing right next to other characters whose faces we can see is apparently John Galt. If you want to know where they’re asking about him and what he looks like, I hope you’ll be satisfied with Part 2! I don’t think you can hold out for Part 3.

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