The premiss of the film is a very interesting one. This is a world where everyone stops ageing at the age of 25, but at that point, a countdown starts. A clock implanted in the forearm ticks away to death. Fortunately, you can earn time as you would earn money. In theory you could live for ever if you have a reasonable stream of income. However, one individual fights the system, realising the dice are loaded from the start after losing his mother. Indeed a ruling class of "immortals" hoards as much time as possible, protecting themselves with the time police.
Now, the film itself. After a promising start and a good scene setting exercise, the pace slows down and the films runs out of steam. There is a lot of pointless coming and going. This doesn't achieve anything and the logic leading the characters is difficult to defend. There isn't a lot of structure to the action.
In brief, the concept of trading time as a commodity is an excellent idea and a powerful metaphor for capitalism and how the world functions today, but the film never really capitalises on the idea by failing to power the action with a good plot.
Novel idea, and flows along pretty well. Worth a watch, and Timberlake does competent job. Solyent Green was a quirky film, in its day.
In Time is a new science fiction thriller by director Andrew Niccol and tells the story of a world, not unlike our own, where time is used as currency. Ninety-nine percent of the population “work today to pay for tomorrow” and one pays for their coffee, their clothes, their home, in hours, minutes and seconds, each payment taking that amount of time off your life.
The rather disturbing sight of the countdown of one’s life appearing on the flesh of your arm upon turning 25 is what drives this movie forward as Justin Timberlake decides he won’t stand for it any more. A freak accident means that Timberlake’s character, Will, is gifted 100 years on his life span, however the mysterious time authorities cry foul play and Will finds himself on the run, with a beautiful female hostage (Amanda Siegfried) in tow, handing out hours, minutes and seconds to the needy.
The movie has a rather obvious anti-capitalist message but somehow the movie seems to stay in the realm of “light reading”; some great action scenes, a surprisingly impressive performance by Timberlake and a quirky premise make this movie perfectly enjoyable and rather fun. If you do not expect too much of this piece, you will not be disappointed.