In the futuristic science fiction movie In Time, Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) is living day by day in a world where once you turn 25, you start a one year countdown clock implanted on your wrist that will stop your heart once it runs out. The only way to add time to your life is to earn it, steal it, or inherit it. Money is no longer used as commerce. Time is the new sign of wealth. Those who have the most time are considered to be the well off or immortal, so to speak. One day a stranger comes into a bar and starts spending time, literally on its patrons. Just as he is about to be robbed of his more than one hundred years of time, Will saves him from the time bandits and hides him out over night. In the morning Will discovers that the man he has saved, didn’t really want to be saved, but instead was tired of continuing living the life of immortality. While he was sleep the stranger transferred his remaining time to Will and therefore kills himself by eliminating the time he had left to live. Now with virtually all the time he can ever ask for, Will discovers that it’s not going to be easy to hold onto, as everyone wants more time added to their existence.
Will wants to help the poor people by giving them more time, because he doesn’t feel that some people should have so much while others struggle everyday to stay alive. This isn’t going over well with the time authorities as they believe Will has stolen the time from the now deceased stranger. A time agent (Cillian Murphy) comes after Will at a party for the privileged, and Will ends up kidnapping the daughter of the city’s wealthiest man. They end up getting robbed after their escape, of most of their time they had left and must now come up with a way to get more time added to their lives. Will decides that he is going to bring down the wealthy corporation that runs the time distribution, and share the wealth of time with the less fortunate. With time being of the essence, it’s going to be a race against it to stay alive long enough to pull off his plan.
This was a very well written picture in my opinion as reflected a lot of similarities to the reality of today. With the world’s population growing rapidly every year, it was not too farfetched that a future like this could become a reality. The rich stay healthy and living as the poor run out of resources to stay alive past their 25th year of life. Its similarities reflected everything from out healthcare services to our unemployment rate. Those who did not have the means to add time to their lives would simple just die, when their clocks reached zero. One aspect that I found quite amusing was how the poor people would always be running or rushing for time as time was used for everything from paying for goods, such as rent and food, to just being able to live another few hours or more. I think that Justin Timberlake is becoming quite a fine actor as he is starting to get better and better roles. His love interest in the movie, Amanda Seyfried, also did a good job in her role. They became like a futuristic Bonnie and Clyde as they robbed the rich to give to the poor. Another scary aspect of the film was how the government would purposely raise the prices of necessities in order to make sure that people would end up running out of time to pay for living, and thereby keeping the population to a minimum. Of course this was only done in the ghettos of the city.
I gave this movie 2 ¾ ticks of the clock out of 4. It’s a really interesting concept, which reflected a lot on today’s society. The film runs 1 hour and 55 mins. It’s rated PG 13 for violence, some sexuality and partial nudity, and strong language. The film was written and directed by Andrew Niccol. It was distributed by 20th Century Fox.
Time is a very precious commodity, that shouldn’t be wasted. – Ezo
Next Week’s Review: Tower Heist
