Atlas Shrugged III: Who is John Galt?

It’s been a long and painful endeavor for Ayn Rand’s controversial magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, finally to reach the last installment of its film trilogy. It takes an equally long and painful effort to watch Atlas Shrugged III: Who Is John Galt?

The trilogy is like a fly buzzing between your eyes with unseemly pomp, and then, even after being smacked with a rolled-up newspaper, it somehow miraculously resurrects, still humming the same one-toned tune. The first two films flopped, and given its stiff dialogue, awkward acting, and cheap special effects, ASIII is basically squatting before liberal bullies, begging for wedgies.

ASIII begins with Dagny Taggart (Laura Regan) plane-crashing Galt’s Gulch, a hidden refuge sheltering the “best and brightest” minds from moochers, looters, and bureaucrats. John Galt (Kristoffer Polaha) finally reveals himself, climaxing the mysterious expression: “Who is John Galt?” He invites Dagny to join his strike and let the outside world implode.

In John’s utopia of “unbridled opportunities where innovation is rewarded,” citizens never provide anyone “unearned sustenance.” Their religion is “self”—self-benefit, self-glory, self-reliance. Their pledge: “I swear by my life and my love for it, never to live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” But their greatest fiction: Egos never clash, accomplishments never stir jealousy, nobody’s greedy or lazy.

Besides its wholly unchristian philosophy, ASIII is just a bad movie. The protagonists don’t communicate; they pontificate. Villains are round-bellied, scotch-drinking idiots-in-suits who sputter at John’s words of wisdom. Ideologies that could have made interesting discussions are sucked dry of subtlety.

To be fair, the film merely mimics Ayn Rand’s book, which still survives as a pot-stirrer of hot debates. What’s remarkable is that whatever the polarizing differences between these godless ideologies—be it extremist capitalism, socialism, or humanism—they all repel from the gospel core of undeserved grace, Christ’s sole redemption, and the futility of human effort and cleverness. John Galt and government bigwigs? They’re not so different.