Atlas Shrugged II: The Strike ««
PG-13, 112m. 2012
Cast & Credits: Samantha Mathis (Dagny Taggart), Jason Beghe (Henry Rearden), Esai Morales (Francisco d’Anconia), Patrick Fabian (James Taggart), Kim Rhodes (Lillian Rearden), Richard T. Jones (Eddie Willers), D.B. Sweeney (John Galt), Paul McCrane (Wesley Mouch), Robert Picardo (Dr. Robert Stadler), Diedrich Bader (Quentin Daniels), Arye Gross (Ken Danagger), Rex Linn (Kip Chalmers), Ray Wise (Head of State Thompson). Screenplay by Duke Sandefur, Brian Patrick O’Toole and Duncan Scott based on the novel by Ayn Rand. Directed by John Putch.
The best moments in Atlas Shrugged II: The Strike are those scenes and dialogue that pertain to what is happening in the country right now or could happen in years to come if something is not done to keep big government out of our lives and out of control spending stopped.
I consider the film’s memorable key moments to be both a good and bad thing. Atlas Shrugged II is a continuation of the first independent conservative themed film released in 2011 based on author Ayn Rand’s 1000 plus page 1957 novel. While the film does not feature any A-list Hollywood stars, there are plenty of recognizable faces who’ve graced the small screen that include Diedrich Bader (The Drew Carey Show), Michael Gross (Family Ties), Rex Linn (CSI: Miami), Paul McCrane (ER), Esai Morales (NYPD Blue) and Kim Rhodes (The Suite Life of Zack and Cody).
Rand’s book, which I have yet to read, presented an America in the future where the only means of transportation is by railway. In the film, the nation’s highways are practically empty which I find a positive thing as one, a fifteen minute drive for me to work would turn into a less than five minute one as I travel over 100 miles an hour down 635 and I’d save hundreds on gas. That is provided I could even afford filling up a 20 gallon tank.
In Atlas Shrugged II, when anti-government heroine and corporate railway CEO Dagny Taggart (Samantha Mathis) fills up her company truck at a country mini-mart, the gas price is $42 bucks which eventually comes out to over $800 that she charges to her company credit card.
In author Ayn Rand’s apocalyptic vision, which I assume the filmmakers faithfully bring to the big screen, America is no longer the land of opportunity. Convenient store clerks stand guard at the doors armed with shotguns making certain customer’s credit cards are preapproved to buy gas. When the president of the United States who is seen briefly as more of a dictator issues a directive freezing all wages and demanding that all corporations be under the care of the government, I don’t see how anyone watching this cannot be reminded of how Congress passed “Obamacare” without reading the document just so everyone can be medically insured.
Every so often corporate entrepreneurs, even entertainers, mysteriously disappear while Dagny’s employees often ask the question, “Who is John Galt?” much to her annoyance in reference to a supposed savior who will be able to solve the country’s financial crisis.
The problem with Atlas Shrugged II is once I took out all those scenes and quotes that reminded me of our current times, there isn’t much else left to embrace. Clearly the film wanted me to root for Dagny Taggart and hope America’s dictatorship gets what’s coming to them which will likely occur in the third movie, if it even gets made. Mathis’ character would make a great role model for all women CEOs running various multi-million dollar companies today, who in some if not all ways prove they are far more capable of running a business better than a man especially since when Rand’s novel came out, the idea of even a woman being in charge of a corporation was unheard of.
In a perfect scene I am sure feminists will be proud of is when Dagny is confronted at the wedding of her brother’s new bride who tells her, “I’ll put you in your place. I’m the woman in this family now,” Dagny calmly retorts back, “That’s quite all right. I’m the man.”
What Atlas Shrugged II lacks is the kind of stirred up emotions I got watching The Hunger Games (2012) where despite the fact I have no desire to read the novels, I can’t wait to see the president and the government in those grim futuristic movies get their eventual comeuppance in the sequels for forcing teenagers to compete in games of death that’s treated as a sick form of entertainment.
There is no doubt with the right acting talent, a notable award winning director and screenwriter who actually give a damn about the material that a big screen adaptation of Rand’s work boasts the words “epic” and “Oscar” written all over it, perhaps even having the book broken down into two three hour films.
The novel in Hollywood has been in “development hell” for decades with plans dating back to the 1970s to have it adapted for the big screen and has attracted such top stars from Clint Eastwood and Robert Redford to Angelina Jolie according to IMDB.com trivia.
If there is anything worth remembering about this second sequel adaptation, and I don’t mean this in a good way, it is that Rand’s novel joins that other list of badly adapted movies that didn’t get the faithful treatment they deserved when they made it to the big screen. That list is endless which includes Ghost Story (1980), Dune (1984) and those Christian themed Kirk Cameron starred Left Behind movies.
Perhaps one day when I have time to read Atlas Shrugged, I’ll do the screenplay adaptation myself and then toss my 500 plus page treatment in a filing cabinet as one of those projects that will never see the light of day. Much the way that unproduced science fiction screenplay, Argo, sits inside a vault within the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters today as evidence used to get a small group of Americans out of Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis as depicted in director Ben Affleck’s latest movie.
©10/15/12
PG-13, 112m. 2012
Cast & Credits: Samantha Mathis (Dagny Taggart), Jason Beghe (Henry Rearden), Esai Morales (Francisco d’Anconia), Patrick Fabian (James Taggart), Kim Rhodes (Lillian Rearden), Richard T. Jones (Eddie Willers), D.B. Sweeney (John Galt), Paul McCrane (Wesley Mouch), Robert Picardo (Dr. Robert Stadler), Diedrich Bader (Quentin Daniels), Arye Gross (Ken Danagger), Rex Linn (Kip Chalmers), Ray Wise (Head of State Thompson). Screenplay by Duke Sandefur, Brian Patrick O’Toole and Duncan Scott based on the novel by Ayn Rand. Directed by John Putch.
I consider the film’s memorable key moments to be both a good and bad thing. Atlas Shrugged II is a continuation of the first independent conservative themed film released in 2011 based on author Ayn Rand’s 1000 plus page 1957 novel. While the film does not feature any A-list Hollywood stars, there are plenty of recognizable faces who’ve graced the small screen that include Diedrich Bader (The Drew Carey Show), Michael Gross (Family Ties), Rex Linn (CSI: Miami), Paul McCrane (ER), Esai Morales (NYPD Blue) and Kim Rhodes (The Suite Life of Zack and Cody).
Rand’s book, which I have yet to read, presented an America in the future where the only means of transportation is by railway. In the film, the nation’s highways are practically empty which I find a positive thing as one, a fifteen minute drive for me to work would turn into a less than five minute one as I travel over 100 miles an hour down 635 and I’d save hundreds on gas. That is provided I could even afford filling up a 20 gallon tank.
In Atlas Shrugged II, when anti-government heroine and corporate railway CEO Dagny Taggart (Samantha Mathis) fills up her company truck at a country mini-mart, the gas price is $42 bucks which eventually comes out to over $800 that she charges to her company credit card.
In author Ayn Rand’s apocalyptic vision, which I assume the filmmakers faithfully bring to the big screen, America is no longer the land of opportunity. Convenient store clerks stand guard at the doors armed with shotguns making certain customer’s credit cards are preapproved to buy gas. When the president of the United States who is seen briefly as more of a dictator issues a directive freezing all wages and demanding that all corporations be under the care of the government, I don’t see how anyone watching this cannot be reminded of how Congress passed “Obamacare” without reading the document just so everyone can be medically insured.
If the film offers any reason why conservatives and Tea Partiers want less government and have them stay the hell out of their lives and running corporations it’s the scene where one of Taggart’s passenger trains collides with another killing hundreds. Therein lies the lesson of that moment. This is what happens when the government is allowed to take over everything in the country which is exactly what President Obama wants to do.There are plenty of great quotes echoing the country’s financial situation that include “The government takes what it wants and taxes what’s left” and “I think everyone agrees that capitalism doesn’t work.”
Every so often corporate entrepreneurs, even entertainers, mysteriously disappear while Dagny’s employees often ask the question, “Who is John Galt?” much to her annoyance in reference to a supposed savior who will be able to solve the country’s financial crisis.
The problem with Atlas Shrugged II is once I took out all those scenes and quotes that reminded me of our current times, there isn’t much else left to embrace. Clearly the film wanted me to root for Dagny Taggart and hope America’s dictatorship gets what’s coming to them which will likely occur in the third movie, if it even gets made. Mathis’ character would make a great role model for all women CEOs running various multi-million dollar companies today, who in some if not all ways prove they are far more capable of running a business better than a man especially since when Rand’s novel came out, the idea of even a woman being in charge of a corporation was unheard of.
In a perfect scene I am sure feminists will be proud of is when Dagny is confronted at the wedding of her brother’s new bride who tells her, “I’ll put you in your place. I’m the woman in this family now,” Dagny calmly retorts back, “That’s quite all right. I’m the man.”
What Atlas Shrugged II lacks is the kind of stirred up emotions I got watching The Hunger Games (2012) where despite the fact I have no desire to read the novels, I can’t wait to see the president and the government in those grim futuristic movies get their eventual comeuppance in the sequels for forcing teenagers to compete in games of death that’s treated as a sick form of entertainment.
Like that other pro-conservative “mockumentary”, 2016: Obama’s America, released in late August, there is only one reason why the first and second Atlas Shrugged films were made in the first place. This is because this is a presidential election year and in the increasingly negative opinionated war of the “US versus THEM” attitude I continue to see displayed from Congress to talk radio to social media on a daily basis, Atlas Shrugged II was made to get conservatives, Tea Partiers and fans of Rand’s novel fired up about the wrong direction they believe this country is going. The fact that conservative political commentator Sean Hannity has a very brief cameo should alone tell one who the film’s target audience is.The question that keeps nagging at me though as I watched the film was is Atlas Shrugged II entertaining? My answer is the same as when I saw The Dark Knight Rises (2012) in July which is no. Believe it or not, I do see movies these days in hopes of being entertained and not be reminded of the sad state our country is in as depicted in Atlas Shrugged II. By comparison, I did not enjoy being pummeled with post 9/11 imagery and being reminded of the war on the rich and the Occupy Wall Street movement in The Dark Knight Rises. I wanted to see a “comic-book” movie.
There is no doubt with the right acting talent, a notable award winning director and screenwriter who actually give a damn about the material that a big screen adaptation of Rand’s work boasts the words “epic” and “Oscar” written all over it, perhaps even having the book broken down into two three hour films.
The novel in Hollywood has been in “development hell” for decades with plans dating back to the 1970s to have it adapted for the big screen and has attracted such top stars from Clint Eastwood and Robert Redford to Angelina Jolie according to IMDB.com trivia.
If there is anything worth remembering about this second sequel adaptation, and I don’t mean this in a good way, it is that Rand’s novel joins that other list of badly adapted movies that didn’t get the faithful treatment they deserved when they made it to the big screen. That list is endless which includes Ghost Story (1980), Dune (1984) and those Christian themed Kirk Cameron starred Left Behind movies.
Perhaps one day when I have time to read Atlas Shrugged, I’ll do the screenplay adaptation myself and then toss my 500 plus page treatment in a filing cabinet as one of those projects that will never see the light of day. Much the way that unproduced science fiction screenplay, Argo, sits inside a vault within the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters today as evidence used to get a small group of Americans out of Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis as depicted in director Ben Affleck’s latest movie.
©10/15/12
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