Paying In Time

Rating: 6/10 (10 November 2019)

In the near future, everyone stops ageing at 25 but the catch is that once people get to 25 they only have 1 year left to live (everyone is programmed with a timer on their left arm showing how much time they have left to live). The poor find themselves having to either work, beg, steal or borrow in order to survive whereas the rich are able to buy themselves decades of life at a time pretty much guaranteeing immortality for themselves. When Will Salas (Justin Timerlake) is gifted over 100 years of life by a man he is wrongly accused of murdering he finds himself on the run and kidnaps the daughter of wealthy entrepreneur Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser). Although she is initially sceptical of Will's motivations when she sees first-hand what life is like in the slums she hatches a plan to help Will overthrow her father's brutal capitalist regime...
I remember when this film came out 8 years ago and being intrigued about seeing it due to its rather unique premise. Whilst in some ways it lived up to what I expected it to be it is also disappointing in many ways as well...
For starters, next to nothing is explained in regards to this new future and how it came to be in existence; when did it all start and by whom? How did the rich become so rich? What was life like before? These things are occasionally eluded to at various points in the film, but we're never given a definitive explanation. In some ways this is frustrating as it becomes a film that you have to watch and just accept what you see in front of you; this is not the same as watching a film and agreeing or disagreeing with what is put in front of you; films of this nature with strong well-developed narrative can invite discussion and reflection, but as you're only given a bare bones story with In Time it's not really possible to do this. The film also has a pointless sub-plot surrounding the death of Will's father which is only ever half developed at best.
Having said that if you are prepared to take it for what it is then what you will get is a briskly-paced thriller and given the fact that every person is effectively against the clock it does have a real 'race against time' feel to it. I lost track of how many times you saw people's clocks count down to within seconds of their life being ended. On this basis it succeeds and in many ways the fast-paced nature of the film does help to paper over the many cracks within the story. The acting performances are all so-so with a possible standout being Vincent Kartheiser as the slimy rich CEO of Weis Time Lenders.
There are other things that are not really explained such as what happens to the bodies of all of the deceased? Do they just get buried or cremated? Also why did Will and Sylvia wait till the very end when they only had seconds to live to run to the Timekeeper's car to buy more time for themselves? Why didn't they do this when they stole his car earlier in the film. On the same note, if the Timekeeper knew he didn't have long to live at the end why didn't he buy himself more time?
So yes there's clearly a number of flaws and some semblance of a backstory and any kind of explanation as to what was going on would have resulted in a much stronger film. Having said that In Time is still pretty damn entertaining and is a fun ride if you just go with the flow and try not to think about it too much.