Outstanding

Rating: 8/10 (2 July 2012)

How do you get a society completely ignorant of social injustice- at best, or enabling cheerleaders of it- at worst, to become aware? Perhaps by presenting an allegory of it. A society where money has been replaced by time. If time is money, then money is also time. In In Time, time is the new currency. Your work is paid in units of time. You pay for things in time units you have earned. If you run out of time, you die.
Just as in real life, in this movie, society is divided into classes, the haves and the have-nots. Those who don't have time are constantly facing death, having to fight for it, borrow it, steal it, pawn things for it. The "rich" have centuries to live, without aging past 25. They have so much time, they have nothing to do with it. They live leisurely, while those who come "from time" are constantly in a hurry, a life racing against the clock implanted in their arms. The poor are convinced that there isn't enough time to go around. Those who basically live in eternity, the bankers of time, so to speak, have rigged the system and allow only breadcrumbs of time to make it to the poor areas, while in reality, there is so much time, no one needs to die. They also constantly toy with the "price" of things so that the poor are always on the brink of dying. It's a world of hyperinflation, where prices double from one day to the next for no good reason- not unlike gas prices in our world.
Salas, our main character is from the lower class and lives with his mother. On the day of her birthday he wants to meet her after work but she runs out of time and dies. Salas then meets someone who has more than a century to live. He reveals to him the secrets of their world- the corruption of society that convinces them of the lie that they live in a zero-sum game, that for someone to get time, someone else has to lose it. Before he commits suicide, he gives Salas all his time, who then goes to the rich time zone. But he is pursued by law enforcement- the time keepers who ensure that not too much time escapes into the poor areas.
Unfortunately from there, In Time turns into something of a Robin-Hood type action movie, where Salas converts a rich girl into joining him in his fight against the evil time plutocrats (chronocrats?) and against the time keepers who are always on their tail.
In Time looks pretty neat, stylish and bleak. The cars are spectacular, combining classic design with futuristic features. Performances all around are OK. But it's the script that shines. It's astonishing how much our language uses the word "time" and once time becomes the currency, many common phrases take on a startling meaning. The premise is quite brilliant. It translates injustice and makes it so much more poignant, these days that we are downright anesthetized to the sickening corruption of banks and financial institutions.