For a few to be immortal, many must die...

Rating: 6/10 (2 March 2012)

"For a few to be immortal, many must die" Philippe Weis, "In Time"
It is with mixed feelings that I am starting to write this review. On one hand, "In Time" is a fun to watch, engaging movie with an original, thought provoking concept. On the other hand, and this is a phrase that I unfortunately have to repeat in too many reviews, uneven, lacking depth story did not allow the movie to fully realize its potential.
As much as Andrew Niccol, who wrote and directed "In Time" should be satisfied with the commercial success of the movie, he should be dissatisfied its overall quality. We expected a better script from the author of the smart and conceptually creative screenplay for the famous "The Truman Show". We expected more depth and insight into a human nature from the writer and director of the stylish, atmospheric, and mind bending "Gattaka".
While "In Time" never reaches the heights of "Gattaka" or "The Truman Show", the movie still worth watching as it bears some signature features of a typical Andrew Niccol's work: an original concept that touches various philosophical, moral, and ethics issues, a compelling mix of action, suspense, thrill, and strong emotions, a great cinematography (Roger Deakins), and a stylish directing.
Unfortunately, a delicate balance between the deep and thought provoking and the light and purely entertaining components of the movie is heavily tipped in favor of the latter, which makes "In Time" significantly "dumber" than it could have been.
The acting is a mixed bag, just as the movie as a whole. While Justin Timberlake's performance is solid, his action hero Will Salas still lacks the charisma, drive, and charm of the unforgettable Sean Parker from David Fincher's "The Social Network".
Similarly, Cillian Murphy is quite convincing as a merciless, relentless, driven Timekeeper, a police-like authority in the dystopian future of the Earth, sketchily portrayed in the movie. However, he is not as good, as he was in Christopher Nolan's "Inception" where he played a smaller, but more professionally significant role of Robert Fischer – a multi-billion dollar oil company heir with a difficult relationship with his father.
While Cillian Murphy and Justin Timberlake were solid but arguably underachieved, Amanda Seyfried (Sylvia Weis) expectedly performed on her usual level – quite unexciting and unimpressive.
The true star of the movie turned out to be a less known actor Vincent Kartheiser who managed to accomplish a very challenging task – remaining believable while playing a century old man with an appearance of a young adult - magnificently well.
Of course, it helped that the Kartheiser's character, one of the richest men in the world Phillipe Weis, had the most interesting and complex personality in the otherwise bland and stereotyped character mix of "In Time". It is not a coincidence that he was the one whom Andrew Niccol entrusted with saying the least conventional, the most controversial, thought-provoking and emotionally charged statements.
The strongest of these statements is a statement of a fundamental, pervasive greed that almost uniformly affects both rich and poor. In the dystopian reality of "In Time", the society as a whole silently agreed to daily sacrifice the lives of the vast majority of its members in order to secure an eternal youth for a very small minority. "For a few to be immortal, many must die," says Philippe Weis in the movie.
The sad irony of his words is that those who must die whole-heartedly support the order of things that is so deadly for them. Blinded by their greed more than by anything else they easily trade an opportunity for a normal, but finite live, for an ephemeral chance to join the small minority that possesses a key to an eternal youth - an ephemeral chance that surely brings a premature death instead.
Overall, despite the obvious flaws plaguing the movie, recommending watching "In Time" is almost a zero-risk game: those interested in exploring a peculiar web of intricate weaknesses and defects of the human nature should be more or less satisfied, those simply looking for a thoughtless Sci-Fi thrill should not be too much disappointed.
knowyourmovie.blogspot.com