For point 1, I never said Elliot was a true believer or bought into the message of the Agorist Cadre, rather the overall message in the movie itself was pro Agorist. While his father at the end was commenting something to the effect of "you're not the terrorists" when talking about the Cadre during the press conference, Elliot seemed to be more about using whatever resources (the Cadre included) to find his family.
My complaint about the main character was the jokes and commentary he made of a economics nature was unnatural sounding, as in most people don't talk about views on Marx and Socialism as a reason for not liking girls in class. It might be one thing if that were his particular quirk, or perhaps part of the community he grew up in, yet the only thing that would have suggested to me that he would consider such topics "normal" conversation topics would be his status as the son of a Economist. Even then that would be stretching it.
Point 2, I was focusing on the feel of the movie's message overall, not necessarily about what the characters endorse. Movies don't need characters to endorse the main message with words, as the case of the movie Repentance (1984) in Georgia (then a Soviet Republic), which challenged the taboo status of talking about Stalin Era disappearances and murders, without ever mentioning Stalin once (De Waal 2010: 131).
As a viewer, I got the impression that the Agorist idea was the message, both in it's triumph over the old system (the United States government forces failing to quell it, while the EU recognized the Agorists as the legitimate government), the Agorists being the means by which the main character/hero of the story accomplishes his goal, and the lack of a "dark side" or flaws in the Agorists.
Point 3, I suspect there was much left out in the movie since it was a cinematic version of the book. I'm critical of arbitration as a cure-all for human conflicts because historically and anthropologically speaking, humans have many tools they resort to in conflict, and arbitration alone fails to resolve conflicts in reality even if it works on paper, much like war alone, or litigation alone. I didn't see any real mechanism or explanation in the movie as to why they only had arbitration. Again, there might have been some explanation in the book as to why they use arbitration, but I didn't see any of that in the movie.
Last, point 4, I was critical of the movie's back story because it didn't match the feel of a failing government and a country on the edge of total collapse. In no part of the movie was there an explanation for why Las Vegas was peaceful and running normally while in the rest of the country was in anarchy with rioting, looting, and military desertions rampant. The news made it sound like the country was breaking apart, yet at no time was this really evident in the movie outside of the news. When governments and nation states fall apart, it's not a time of peace and stability.
Instead of gang warfare, slaving, riots, and the sudden stop of power and utilities, I saw people living in very nice homes in a gated community, working utilities, peaceful protests, and a working city with no violence. All of this while the country is falling to pieces, the unit of national trade and economic activity is worthless, and the military is revolting against the civilian government. All fiction stories require suspension of disbelief to some level, but throw the audience a bone here.
If Elliot had, as a example, a map circumventing all the chaos in Nevada or routes away from the violence in the country, that would have helped make it more believable. If the areas he was in were self sufficient or running on reserves, with a strong local governance to keep rioting down and keep everything running, hat would make a great deal more sense and wouldn't require much more than a prop (in the case of a map) or some extras with a few lines (in the case of the areas with better governance and self sufficiency). Or even a mention of it early on by either Elliot or his father as to why they're not in the heart of the chaos the rest of the country is facing.
If you wish to claim in the back story that the country is in the middle of a hyperinflation induced crisis with the military going on strike over pay while the country is wracked by chaos, then it helps to show a bit of that chaos with the characters directly, or at least an explanation as to why the characters are not in the heart of it. Otherwise it strains credibility for the viewers.
Thanks for reading,
-Heretic Skippy
Work Cited
De Waal, T. (2010). The caucasus: An introduction.
(pp. 1-229). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
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