John Preston (character)

John Preston is a fictional character who appears in the 2002 film Equilibrium. Preston is portrayed by Christian Bale. In the film Preston holds the rank of "Grammaton Cleric First Class"; a rank to which Grammaton Cleric Brandt (Taye Diggs) aspires.

In post World War III Earth the citizens of Libria, the last civilized stronghold left, are kept sedated by injections of Prozium, a sedative that all citizens take at various times during their day. Books, music, art...anything that causes an emotional reaction is deemed to be EC-10 (Emotional Content-10), forbidden material.

John Preston, whose intuitive ability to discern 'sense-offenders' (people who have halted their doses of Prozium and can feel emotions) gives him the ability to hunt them down, is a widower with two children who lives to serve the Tetragrammaton Council. His perfection of Gun Kata, and his lack of emotion make him the deadliest of enforcers. He is able to quell Resistance cells single-handedly.

His own wife was executed for being a 'sense-offender', a point that Preston's superior points out is ironic, given that Preston lived with her, but never sensed her crime.

His son, who on the surface seems the epitome of control and has the same cold demeanour as his father, is actually a 'sense-offender' too, as he and his sister halted their doses after the death of their mother. However, Preston never suspects that until his son tells him.

After a raid in the Nethers, where the 'sense-offenders' live and hide-out, Preston senses something in Partridge, then finds out he didn't turn in a book he confiscated at the raid.

Preston follows Partridge, shadowing him as he returns to a church in the Nethers. There he finds his partner reading the book and speaking to him about what they have lost as a result of the Prozium and the destruction of EC-10 materials.

He quotes William Butler Yeats, and then reaches for his gun, deliberately forcing Preston to kill him, rather than be taken prisoner and killed by someone for whom he had no affection.

The death of his partner shakes Preston, and after he breaks his morning dose of Prozium, and then isn't able to replace it, he starts to feel again after a minor raid inside the city, and deliberately goes off of the medication thereafter.

In a raid with his new partner, Cleric Brandt, Preston locates the cell's stash of art, and, before reporting it, takes a moment to appreciate the beauty of some of the objects, particularly a snow globe of the Eiffel Tower. Playing a record, Preston is struck dumb and moved to tears by the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. After the raid, the troops discover a kennel of dogs in the yard, and are unable to ascertain why this cell--as has previously been observed--kept animals in such a fashion, as the nature of a 'pet' is entirely sentimental and thus alien to them. A puppy escapes the pen while one of the policemen is shooting the other dogs, and Bale takes the dog, announcing that at least one should be tested for disease. He places the dog in his trunk, and leaves the city that night to release it into the nether.

He ends up killing the whole squad single-handedly when they find the puppy and charge him with 'sense-offense'. What the viewer knows but Preston does not is that Brandt followed him into the nether, but did not accost him before, during, or after his confrontation with the police.

Preston also finds himself drawn to a prisoner from their raid, a woman named Mary, who he realizes was Partridge's lover. He reveals that he is off the medication, and also realizes that Partridge and Mary were well placed and resourceful enough that they had to be in contact with the main hub of the resistance. By tracking Partridge's movements prior to his murder, Preston locates a man named 'Jurgen,' who takes him to the headquarters of the resistance, and asks him to assassinate "Father", the figurehead leader of the Tetragrammaton. Without central leadership, Jurgen is certain his own forces can sabotage the delivery and manufacture of Prozium, the emotion drug, for at least long enough to disrupt the supply for a day. Once that occurs, he is further certain that the power of human emotion will ensure that no one resumes the drug.

When Mary is executed, the pain of her loss coupled with the reminder of his wife's execution that he stood by and watched breaks Preston and he begins to weep on the steps of the government building and is found by Brandt, who takes him to their superior as a traitor. Preston then announces that he has located the traitor among the Clerics that he had earlier been charged to find, and that it is Brandt himself. Due to circumstantial evidence that Preston himself manufactured, Brandt is condemned and dragged off to be executed.

Their superior, Vice-Consul DuPont, arranges a meeting between Preston and Father after Preston 'captures' Jurgen and many of his lieutenants--who willingly sacrifice themselves to certain execution to give Preston a chance at assassinating Father. Before the meeting, however, a polygraph is administered to ensure that Preston is showing no emotion whatsoever. The polygraph, as soon as it is attached, shows a normal human's emotional activity. Brandt then reveals that he was not executed, and he and the vice chancellor inform Preston that from the start his failure to take the drug was known and planned for. After he broke his vial early on, it was the Vice-Chancellor who had the facility for his replacement dose closed so that he would be off the drug, because only a cleric who was actually off the drug and feeling would be able to gain the trust of and infiltrate the resistance. Brandt's job was merely to ensure that Preston was confident that he himself was not suspected, so that the Resistance leaders would surrender themselves. DuPont indeed, is Father himself--the 'real' father is long dead, much like The Dread Pirate Roberts, or, even more directly, Big Brother--using computer animation to mimic the appearance and voice of the original father.

The shock of so absolute a betrayal, and of his own manipulation, send Preston back into the emotional catatonia of a Cleric, whereupon he kills the guards in his room, and kills his way to DuPont's office. He kills several clerics, before taking on Brandt himself, whom he dispatches with almost comical ease. (In the commentary, the Director notes that he is tired of the recurrent theme of the climactic action scene involving the hero being beaten to the edge of defeat by the villain only to have an epiphany or a sudden crystalization of purpose, leading him to turn the tide and overcome his foe. So, in the 'climactic fight scene', in this case the hero reveals that the prime antagonist is not even in his league.)

Preston then disarms DuPont, who insists that now that Preston knows what humanity truly is, through his new feeling of emotion, it would be monsterous for him to kill DuPont and thus become a murderer. Preston then says of the moral price of becoming a murderer, "I pay it gladly," quoting Partridge's last words, in the same context, and kills DuPont.

Preston is then shown, bleeding slightly from a grazing gunshot wound to the neck, destroying the central media control room, then watching as the resistance fighters bomb the prozium facilities and attack major government buildings. Without their central command and control, the guards are overwhelmed.

Kills

The character holds the record for third most onscreen kills seen in a single film by a single character, 118, according to moviebodycounts.com.. The current holder of #1 is Ogami Ittō, of Lone Wolf and Cub, with 150, and Smith, the main character of Shoot em Up is second with 141.

See also

• Christian Bale
• Gun Kata
• Kurt Wimmer
• Violet Song jat Shariff
• UltraViolet