Information Review

Atlas Shrugged is drama film, set for release in the USA on April 15, 2011. The film is directed by Paul Johansson and the screenplay is written by John Aglialoro based on the book by Ayn Rand, and stars Taylor Schilling as Dagny Taggart, Grant Bowler as Hank Rearden, Matthew Marsden as James Taggart, Graham Beckel as Ellis Wyatt, Edi Gathegi as Edwin "Eddie" Willers, Jsu Garcia as Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia, Michael Lerner as Wesley Mouch, Nick Cassavetes as Richard McNamara, Ethan Cohn as Owen Kellogg, Rebecca Wisocky as Lillian Rearden, Christina Pickles as Mother Rearden, Neill Barry as Philip Rearden, Patrick Fischler as Paul Larkin, Sylva Kelegian as Ivy Starnes, Jon Polito as Orren Boyle and Michael O'Keefe as Hugh Akston.

Movie synopsis: the film opens with the disappearance of Midas Mulligan, before jumping forward twelve years to a dystopian United States. For twelve years the country has endured difficult economic times and public sentiment is rife with collectivism and calls for increasing government intervention in the economy. Protagonist Dagny Taggart, Operating Vice-President of Taggart Transcontinental, a giant railroad company originally pioneered by her grandfather, attempts to keep the company alive while her feckless brother, company president James Taggart, refuses to make difficult choices. Dagny meets the industrialist Hank Rearden – a self-made steel magnate of great integrity, who has recently developed a powerful new metal alloy called Rearden Metal – and Ellis Wyatt – a young, self possessed, hard working oil tycoon – and solicits their help in repairing and maintaining the rail network. As economic conditions worsen, corrupt government officials continue to extend their control of successful businesses. Added to Dagny's existing troubles is her gradual realization that the most able and diligent workers of her company – as well as of society at large – have been disappearing without a trace. A general malaise and sense of powerlessness spreads throughout the weary citizenry, encapsulated in a new phrase expressing helplessness and despair at the current state of the world, "Who is John Galt?" As the country's best and brightest continue to vanish, Dagny and Rearden go in search of the creator of a radical invention that could alter industry permanently. The film ends with Wyatt himself vanishing, leaving Dagny and Rearden the only egoists left in a now totalitarian country.

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