I haven't read the book Atlas Shrugged, so I went to the movie without the expectations a reader might have regarding how characters look, sound, and act.  It was all new to me, except for the underlying political concepts and a basic idea of "Who is John Galt?"

When I saw the previews months ago, I was not impressed at all.  I thought, "made for tv, or straight to DVD."  However, I was not disappointed at all after I saw Atlas Shrugged in the theater.  The acting ranged from bearable to quite good, the cinematography was very well done.  Most importantly, it was getting its message across.

I'm probably biased in favor of the movie because of the points it's making on government and industry, freedom and the law.  I'm not sure how an average moviegoer would rate the movie based on the usual criteria.  There wasn't really much action.  The movie is based on conversations about politics and character development.  There was some suspense and intrigue, which may help it's case with the common man, but it's not a summer blockbuster.

For me, this movie was better than Rand's other novel-turned-celluloid, The Fountainhead, which I saw earlier this year.  The actors in Atlas Shrugged came across as more human, somehow, despite their unknown status compared to Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal.

The tendrils of government controls enveloping industry, the layoffs and unemployment, and the absurd acts of Congress portrayed in the film are all too real today.  The fact that more and more people, from Tea Partiers to Anarchists, are looking to escape the looters is real as well. 

 But, I did find one aspect of the movie to be quite unrealistic:  If a real John Galt were trying to recruit libertarian-capitalist elitists to his colony of escaped producers, I think he'd have difficulty finding even one who would join him.

I admit that my knowledge of the hearts and minds of industrialists rests in the realm of absolute ignorance, however, my observations of what pass for industrialists today (do industrialists even truly exist anymore in America), is that on the whole, they are in compliance with the looters, or worse, accomplices to them.  The government-industrial complex reigns absolute in America today.

Is there one mega-corporation in America that is not "owned", even to the slightest degree, by the federal government?  Is there one small-to-medium sized corporation in America that is not paid, supplemented, or contracted by a local, county, state or federal entity?

It seems to me that the top of the business world is overrun with James Taggarts.  They play ball with the government because THAT is their business.  Less the actual production of goods and services, sold on a free market, and more the production of laws and regulations and price fixing and resultant nationalized monopoly. 

 The super-elite of the business-government complex are not pressed down under the weight of tax burden and regulation, they are enriching themselves using their biggest partner, Uncle Sam and all his goons, in order to transfer the economic and societal burden on to the tax payers.

To many, Uncle Sam's pockets may seem to be bottomless and his enforcers invincible, but that will change.  In the meantime, Atlas, to me, is every man and woman who pays taxes and receives little to no benefit. 

 If I were to imagine a John Galt of today, looking to populate his mythical Atlantis, I would picture him sitting behind a computer writing articles, painting signs, making videos, and spreading the word in any way he could, to as many people as possible: There is another option to the State.

In that regard, the producers of the movie Atlas Shrugged are some of the John Galts we need.  It's not going to be only the elite producers, but any producers, from those who live meager lives of self-sustenance to those who work from 8 to 5 (which translates sometimes to 12-16 hour days), for whom the weight of the looters has become unbearable, who must be indoctrinated in the message of freedom, recruited to the philosophy of freedom, and finally and inevitably, they must shrug.