Its some time in the near future. The survivors of a third World War believe that the human race wont survive a fourth, and have taken drastic steps to ensure it doesnt happen. Deciding that the root of all conflict and war is human emotion, they have created out of the ashes a new nation Libria whose citizens are required to inject doses of an emotion-suppressant called Prozium every day. Enforcing the edicts of Librias leader, Father (Sean Pertwee), is a new arm of the law, the Grammaton Cleric, tasked with hunting down and executing sense offenders.
Cleric John Preston (Christian Bale) is the best of the order; able to know an offender is feeling almost before the offender does. Within the first five minutes of the film, he employs his orders dual-pistol-wielding martial art, the Gun Katas, to spectacular and deadly effect, dispatching an entire room of armed sense offenders quickly and efficiently. When his own partner, Partridge (Sean Bean), is caught concealing a book of poetry, its Preston himself who pulls the trigger.
The morning after Partridges death, Preston accidentally drops his dose of Prozium, and when the nearest depot is unavailable, he skips his dose. His burgeoning feelings are fanned by a recently arrested, aggressively emotional sense-offender, Mary OBrien (Emily Watson), and he begins to doubt his mission, so much so that he stays off the Prozium. Unfortunately, Prestons new partner, Brandt (Taye Diggs), is keen to advance his career, even if it means uncovering Prestons sense crime, and when Preston accepts an assignment from the head of the Cleric, DuPont (Angus MacFadyen) to infiltrate the underground resistance to Libria, he faces his most difficult challenge yet: bringing down the Tetragrammaton and destroying the very society that created him
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