In Time

Rating: 7/10 (16 March 2012)

From Andrew Niccol (writer/director of Gattaca, writer of The Truman Show), I was happy to see the singer who made a great impression in The Social Network in a leading role, and from the trailer it looked like a cool concept. Those common phrases "If only I had more time on my hands", "Spend your time wisely", "Time is of the essence" and especially "Time is money", all those give you the idea of what you can expect from this terrific film. Basically in a futuristic society, the human race has been genetically altered, so that the ageing process will stop when a person reaches the age of twenty five, and then this starts a time clock of one year, seen in green counting down on their wrist, and everyone has to work to earn time, like earning money, time is what you spend, and you will die when your time runs out. Twenty eight year old factory worker Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) lives with at home with his fifty year old mother Rachel (Olivia Wilde), and they are barely getting by trying to earn the time that they need. Being in a ghetto environment people do anything to get the time they need, whether it be borrowing or stealing from others, and the timekeepers do everything possible to track down those guilty of the big time crimes, only the rich people are immortal and can live forever. One rich man though has had enough of his long life, Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer) has become tired of life, and after being rescued from thieves by Will, while sleeping the wealthy man passes his time to him, before dying and falling off a bridge, with Will at the scene. Timekeeper Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy) and his colleagues see the footage on CCTV, but they only see Will, and they could not tell whether Hamilton jumped or was pushed. Will meanwhile was racing to stop his mother Rachel from running out of time with his newfound wealth, but he was too late, and she died in his arms, so he heads to New Greenwich to seek revenge against the system. While he gambles his time in a casino against time-loaning businessman Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser), and flirts with Weis's spoilt daughter Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried), Raymond has concluded (wrongly) that Will killed Hamilton for his century's worth of clock time, and as punishment he takes Will's time away, and gives him only two hours left, in order to get out of town. Will decides in order to get his point across, and for some kind of protection, he kidnaps Sylvia, who has feelings for as well, but they are both running out of time, so they have to scrimp and steal in order to keep getting away from those chasing them. By the end of the film, after so many chases and near misses in their clocks counting down, and a point when they crash open a bank for others to steal time capsules, they manage to break the system, giving everyone all over the country all the time they will ever need, and Will and Sylvia stay on the run stealing theirs. Also starring Shyloh Oostwald as Maya, Johnny Galecki as Borel and Aaron Perilo as Bell. Timberlake was really good as the frantic young man trying to use his time wisely, Seyfried is also good as the woman trying to find what side to be on, and Murphy is lightly sinister as the man trying to keep those who apparently don't deserve time from gaining more of it. It is a really clever concept, that time is the ultimate currency, because it is the thing we most rely on in the world, besides money time is crucial and it surrounds everything we do, and that idea is used perfectly in this most watchable science-fiction thriller. Very good!