In Time

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Plot:  In a distopian future, people grow up to be 25 years old when they either die, or if they have money they can buy more time, which is additional days of life. Everyone looks like they are twenty-five because they stop aging.

A person's lifetime is recorded on their forearms, and lifetime used as money to buy things. If you go bankrupt, then you die.

Will (Justin Timberlake) is poor and lives with his mom (Olivia Wilde) in a poor "ghetto", and they scrape together enough time to live one day at a time. Will meets a guy in a bar who has 130 years with him, and robbers swoop in to take his time. Will rescues him, and is rewarded with the 130 years. Will runs to a rich area where his new wealth will not stand out, and he meets wealthy time-banker Phillippe Weis (Vincent Karthauser) and his adventurous daughter Sylvia (Amada Siegfried.) When the cops catch Will, Will and Sylvia run. Soon they are robbing the rich, and donating the money to the poor, Robin Hood style. There is a strong class-warfare, social justice message.

Review: In Time has many levels, and the political commentary is what carries it. It is like the science fiction movie version of the Occupy Wall Street Protests. The movie takes the themes of the recent protest movement and plays them in the this allegorical science fiction universe. If you are going for the action movie or science-fiction movie aspects, you may not like it.  

 Justin Timberlake does a fine job as a caring working-man hero. His mom Olivia Wilde is emotive and has a great death scene. Vincent Karthauser's Phillippe is greasy and completely self justified. Amanda Siegfried was disappointing. A better performance from her could have made this a major movie. Chemistry between Justin and Amanda just was not there. Cillian Murphy does a great job as a cop, but at 35 he looks too old.

The plot is highly conceptual, and the convention of a clock in one's forearm keeping you alive is odd. My wife found the whole clock/timebank/time-is-money metaphor too distracting. 

Director Andrew Niccol produces some painterly scenes and solid art direction. The soundtrack is OK.

In Time is reasonably entertaining, but the script and its political narrative are the real stars. If you don't like politics, you'll find it dull and preachy. 

Cast: Justin Timberlake, Amanda Siegfried, Vincent Karthauser

Written and directed by: Andrew Niccol

Rating:   2.5+ stars; It is a two star movie that gets another half because of its ambition. I am glad I saw it. It is a good conversation movie.

More: The robberies that Will and Sylvia do are justified by saying "How many people are killed every day in the ghetto?"  This is the kind of rhetoric that is used to justify terrorism, so it is a pretty dangerous argument.  Will and Sylvia shoot people as they steal time, and while they don't they kill civilians, this is getting close to terrorism.

Even more: I have described the film's message in terms of social justice and politics, but it could just as easily be described in terms of anarchy and revolution. Ideas that are more dangerous. 


I wonder how thin is the veneer of civilization in the US, and how far underneath is anarchy. 

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