Time is literally money in stylistically retro sci-fi flick

Rating: 8/10 (15 December 2017)

Now hold on. This is supposed to be sci-fi, but instead of futuristic computer generated images what you get is cars, clothes and buildings made no later than the 1970´s or the early 1980´s at latest. The film takes place in 23rd century so what do we see here? In all likelihood this is what the writer-director Andrew Niccol had in mind. While taking place in the future, the entire film is made as if it was made way back in the past. Shot digitally it doesn´t look it. Slightly grainy look and reddish-brown, sometimes bluish coloration is just as if the whole thing had been shot in the early or mid seventies 16 or 35 mm film now aged and discolored. Same goes for editing, camera angles, the chase scenes, acting style and so on as well. The clothes, furniture and even the cups the characters drink from are from the sixties. Significantly there are no computers, no electronic devices hand-held or otherwise and no electronic displays of any kind in the film. The exceptions are the silly fluorescent remaining lifetime displays everyone has on their arms. The cars are supposedly souped-up with electrical engines but they sound more like the electrical toy cars of the sixties. Stylistically, if this was a film from the early seventies by say Kubrick of the Clockwork Orange period or Michael Crichton of the Andromeda Strain period, the only unusual aspect would be the novel basic idea of using remaining lifetime used as currency instead of money. In 2011 terms the plot may be simplistic at times but in 1971 the whole thing would have been really far out, man, cutting edge sci-fi. Obvious homage is being paid to Arthur Penn´s Bonnie and Clyde, the major film of the period about people on borrowed time. I thoroughly enjoyed my two-way time trip and the core matter of the plot, thought-provoking, utterly brutal economics of time running out, more deadly than money. A good reminder of one´s mortality, too, and that is more than most films have to offer. A satisfying film for a long-time movie freak but I do understand that it would be baffling for the uninitiated who see the dots but do not register the connections.