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John Preston
John Preston (Christian Bale)
- The Ace: Considered this amongst clerics in combat as well as his ability to find hidden emotional content. Not so much in his ability to actually realise people are feeling though.
- Badass Longcoat: The Grammaton Cleric's standard combat outfit is a longcoat.
- Big Brother Is Employing You: He is the top Grammaton Cleric, responsible for tracking down and bringing to justice "sense offenders," the opponents of the Tetragrammaton Council, the government of Libria.
- First Time Feeling: Hits him hard, not least because, at the time, he's found and is listening to an old vinyl album of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, one of the most tremendously moving pieces of music ever produced by the human species. Even the script describes this introduction to human emotion as 'unfair'. (But it does a lot to explain his subsequent actions.)
- Good Wears White: In the film's climax, Preston dons a completely white clerical ceremonial outfit. This stands out as all the other characters all have worn black, so the fight is him fighting all the black-clothed main villain and his goons.
- Guns Akimbo: He almost always wields two guns simultaneously.
- The Gunslinger: He's an absolute expert in armed combat and the most lethal gun-wielding character in the film.
- The Kingslayer: He ends up killing DuPont, the real leader of Libria.
- Offhand Backhand: Pretty much any shot Preston makes falls under this trope since Gun Kata eliminates the need to actually aim.
- One-Man Army: Preston. He smashes his way through every obstacle put before him and racks up a massive kill count over the course of the film.
- The Only Believer: Events of the film show that no other characters in the film who are involved with the regime (with the possible exception of the mooks) actually believe in the propaganda. Partridge has come to reject the philosophy of Libria and quietly rebels against it, Brandt and DuPont are hypocrites who don't take Prozium themselves and have selfish motivations for running the state, and others like Preston's son aren't truly taking Prozium or killing their emotions, they're just pretending to so that they are left alone by the state.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: He goes on a rampage after DuPont reveals his deceit, slaughtering dozens of minions in the hallways. Minus the "roaring" part, as Gun Kata requires emotional control.
- Showy Invincible Hero:
The director finds it boring when the villain "gets a few good licks in" on the hero because he has no intention of subverting audience expectations with a Bad Guy Wins ending, and thus, there's no point in making it seem like the villain has an advantage at all when the result is a foregone conclusion. He does acknowledge that not everyone likes this approach. And yet, for all Preston's physical invincibility, he turns out to be incredibly emotionally vulnerable. - The Stoic: After starting as one, he quickly turns Not So Stoic as he struggles with having and hiding emotions. He even suffers a Heroic BSoD, but becomes The Stoic again before the final battle.
- Tranquil Fury: Four words: "No. Not without incident." Every single Mook in his immediate presence dies within one minute, and Preston quietly uses one more shot to shatter DuPont's screen.
- Unwitting Pawn: As it turns out, he is the first success in trying to locate and destroy the resistance — DuPont had been trying for ages to find the source of the resistance by slipping in an inside man... but he found out it would be easier to follow Preston's attempts to contact the resistance.
- Villain Protagonist: Subverted. He starts as a servant of the Librian government but pulls a Heel–Face Turn.
Mary O'Brien
Mary O' Brien (Emily Watson)
- Murder by Cremation: She's killed as a sense offender by being burned alive in the Hall of Justice's cremation chambers.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: She has rather distinctive blue eyes and fully embraces her emotions.
- Lady in Red: Though she provides emotional allure, rather than sexual.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives one (with a dose of What the Hell, Hero?) to Preston during her interrogation.
- Sacrificial Lamb: Witnessing her death provides Preston with the impetus to take down the government.
- The Smurfette Principle: Mary is the only female in the main cast.
Andrew Brandt
Andrew Brandt (Taye Diggs)
- Badass Longcoat: Like all Grammaton clerics, this is his signature outfit, doing all his gun kata fights in them.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Brandt has no problem in ordering the soldiers to exterminate that dogs in that fence.
- Bald of Evil: His skull is clean-shaven.
- Bodyguarding a Badass: In the final fight, he guards DuPont even though it is clear after Preston cuts off his face that DuPont is a master at Gun Kata.
- Cheshire Cat Grin: Is constantly smiling even though he's supposedly emotionless. It might be a sign that he's not on Prozium or just indicate that he's so cold-blooded that he doesn't need emotions to smile smugly. In the DVD Commentary, the director reveals that he cast Taye in part for his smile.
- Diagonal Cut: How he died, with the front of his skull sliced off by Preston's katana.
- The Dragon: He's in fact Vice Council DuPont's most trusted lieutenant and like his master, is also not using Prozium.
- Large Ham: Slips into this right after he catches Preston, going on a loud tirade that he's found the infiltrator within the clerical order.
- Slasher Smile: He has a big smile while summarily executing sense offenders. This is used to foreshadow that he's off his meds.
- Smug Smiler: This guy is awfully fond of smirking despite supposedly sticking to his dose.
- Straw Hypocrite: Both DuPont and Brandt are off Prozium, but they advocate the prosecution and execution of all sense offenders with fanatic zeal.
- Tear Off Your Face: Preston kills him by slicing his face off with a katana.
Errol Partridge
Errol Partridge (Sean Bean)
- Cultured Badass: Reads and quotes from William Butler Yeats's Poem 'Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven'.
- Death by Cameo: Sean Bean shows up for his usual death scene.
- Decoy Protagonist: At first it seems like he would be the hero of the story. This is not an unusual role for Sean Bean, so his casting could be seen as foreshadowing this trope.
- Obi-Wan Moment: He knows he's doomed after Preston finds him and rather than engage in futile fighting or attempts to beg or deal he just quietly raises the poetry book, making sure it will be the last thing he sees.
DuPont
DuPont (Angus Macfadyen)
- Big Bad: He's the real leader of the Libria police state, with Father's image being nothing more than a political tool after he died.
- Boomerang Bigot: Wants to destroy all sense-offenders, despite being one himself.
- Cultured Badass: He keeps an art collection and reads poetry, quoting Yeats right before the climactic fight. He is also a Gun Kata master.
- Dragon-in-Chief: The de facto decision-maker as Father is too old for much of the work required in running their dictatorship. In actuality, he's the real leader as Father is long dead.
- Evil Brit: If his accent is any indication.
- Guns Akimbo: He's a Gun Kata master.
- Lecture as Exposition: Is introduced training and lecturing recruits on the gun katas.
- The Man in Front of the Man: Libria is ruled by a mysterious figure known only as "Father", who delegates much of his authority to Vice Council DuPont, who acts as "Father's Voice". At the end, it's revealed that Father died several years ago and they've been using his image for propaganda purposes. The Council simply elected DuPont himself to de facto assume the responsibilities of Father's office."Don't look so surprised, Preston. Why should Father be more real than any other political puppet?"
- Mouth of Sauron: Described as "Father's Voice". Turns out to be a subversion: the real Father died years before, and DuPont is actually running things while pretending to be the Mouth of Sauron.
- Oh, Crap!: Gets progressively more unnerved as he watches Preston defeat each layer of his defenses.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: He's one of the greatest masters of Gun Kata. He puts up much more of a fight in the climax than his Dragon, Brandt, does. This is foreshadowed by DuPont delivering the exposition about Gun Kata in the first third of the film, and later by DuPont talking about the rumor that "one of us, the Cleric" had turned.]]
- The Stoic: He's always calm because he doesn't feel any emotions. He's just a lot eerier than the trope is usually played since the topics he usually discusses are brutal repression and mass murder. Subverted, as he isn't on Prozium.
- Straw Hypocrite: Rules the totalitarian Libria as an oligarch by forcing everyone to suppress their emotions with a drug called Prozium. When Preston raids his office in the climax, it is decorated with fine art that wasn't incinerated, and DuPont outright states that he is a Sense Offender himself in a last-ditch appeal to stop Preston from shooting.
- Suddenly Shouting: When he confronts Preston that a sense offender has infiltrated the Grammaton clerics' ranks, he suddenly shouts "ARE YOU PLAYING WITH ME, CLERIC?!" This is foreshadowing that DuPont himself is no longer using Prozium.
Father
Father (Sean Pertwee)
- Big Brother Is Watching: The society he built uses very constant surveillance to monitor its subject. Not through having literal surveillance placed everywhere, but by citizens spying on others.
- Dead All Along: He died years ago. DuPont has since taken on his authority while maintaining the fiction that Father is still in charge.
- Evil Brit: If his accent is any indication.
- Shadow Dictator: Inspired by 1984, "Father" is the mysterious and omnipresent dictator of Libria. Though we do see broadcasts featuring him, they are faked, since the original Father died, and Du Pont was chosen to replace him.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: He believed removing all human emotions would mean the end of war. He ended up creating something just as bad instead.
Jurgen
Jurgen (William Fichtner)
- Chekhov's Gunman: He's one of the speech attendants at the beginning of the movie.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Shows up in the audience during a broadcasted speech by The Father early on but only enters the plot halfway through the movie.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Allows Preston to arrest him and other leaders of the resistance in order to get Preston close enough to assassinate Father. Before his execution, he has a satisfied smirk knowing he succeeded.
- Irony: He is still on Prozium despite rebelling against the system, while a good number of Libria's officials aren't.
- La Résistance: He's the leader of a resistance movement that believes experiencing emotions is worth the danger of war and seeks to overthrow Father's police state.
Seamus
Seamus (Dominic Purcell)
- La Résistance: He's part of a resistance movement that believes experiencing emotions is worth the danger of war and seeks to overthrow Father's police state.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: Averted big time.
Grammaton Clerics
Grammaton Clerics
- Church Militant: Despite serving a secular state, they use the trappings of this trope. Some of the quasi-religious vibes are a bit more subtle: though it also sort of resembles the Nazi swastika, the symbol of the Librian regime is most similar to the type of cross seen on the coat of arms of the medieval Kingdom of Jerusalem
, or the "decapitated cross" of Brave New World. Moreover, "Tetragrammaton"note is a euphemism used to refer to the name of God. - Culture Police: They are an elite police force tasked with destroying all art and killing anyone who possesses art. This was because the dystopian government was attempting to stabilize society by completely eliminating human emotion (why the government needs an elite Gun Kata-trained task force to carry this out is never really explained).note
- The Gunslinger: Grammaton Clerics, the foremost and most elite soldier of the Librian regime.
- Judge, Jury, and Executioner: The Clerics, who are authorized to carry out neutralizations — or at least lead firing squads — against Sense Offenders, and judging from John's protests after his Prozium withdrawal, are allowed to process offenders in any way they see fit.
- The Musketeer: Clerics are trained to use swords in addition to guns and Preston shows his mastery of both in the climax.
