Atlas Shrugged is a book that has been on the best seller list multiple times in the last decade despite first being published in 1957. Ayn Rand tried several times to get the book made into a movie or at least a TV mini-series. Over the years names like Farah Fawcett and Angelina Jolie have been attached to the project wanting to play the lead, Dagny Taggart. Most recently, it was being produced by Lion's Gate before it all fell apart again for the hundredth or so time. With the rights about to revert back from John Aglialoro, a long time fan of Rand, he decided to make an independent movie outside of the big studios and make the movie in three parts.
The first movie covers part 1, about 400 pages, of Atlas Shrugged. The creative team had the unenviable job of boiling down 20 page soliloquies into pithy one-liners, casting mostly unknown actors as iconic characters, and doing it all while racing the clock of the rights reverting back from Agialoro. Some actors, including the one portraying James Taggart, were hired only two days before shooting began. The movie was only released in a few hundred theaters (I had to travel from Newark, DE to Cherry Hill, NJ to see it) and likely will never recoup its own production costs.
Reviews of the movie were hard to find and when found gave the impression that the movie was below the quality of most direct-to-DVD films. Even Kurt Loder, a libertarian and fan of Rand, said of the film, "It’s a blessing, I suppose, that Ayn Rand, who loved the movies, and actually worked extensively in the industry, isn’t alive to see what’s been made of her most influential novel." Despite all this, the movie actually is quite good and definitely worth a viewing.
The two main actors, Taylor Schilling as Dagny and Grant Bowler as Hank Reardon seem to portray the strength of their characters faithfully and their acting chops come up short only when displaying the emotional extremes. In Atlas Shrugged, as with Star Wars, wooden acting does not have to be a bad thing. Matthew Marsden plays a slick James Taggart with a smile that both hides his character's baser intentions and hints that he is enjoying the role. Graham Beckel (Bob Beckel's libertarian-leaning brother) gives the worst performance as Ellis Wyatt, his performance seeming far over-the-top and uncontrolled especially during his heated exchanges with Dagny. The other actors hold their own, even if they do not shine.
Much like with the movie Watchmen, some say Atlas Shrugged is unfilmable and they may well be right. The movie requires many quick cuts towards the end as the two main characters track down the object of their desire (no spoilers here) and many scenes are left out entirely because they are simply not important enough to the main plot. Its hard to see how this could have been avoided without changing the plot around to accommodate the movie-making aspect, something that Agialoro admirably does not do.
Nonetheless, most fans will likely appreciate the film that some have waited 54 years to be made, warts and all. The overall production values are surprisingly high and the film shows no major defects in camera work or casting. Casual movie-goers unfamiliar with Rand might not find much to love but, as Reason.com Editor-in-Chief describes them, the "Capitalism, bitch!" moments help to elevate the movie by showing us something we don't normally see in Hollywood, businessmen as the good guys and the government as intrusive and destructive.
Atlas Shrugged Part 2 and 3 are due out on April 15, 2012 and April 15, 2013 respectively.
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