“In Time” combines an interesting new story concept with a well known moral tale to create a fairly unique film that delivers exactly what it promises.
Starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried, “In Time” tells the story of a world very different from our own where time is literally money. Each person is genetically engineered to stop aging at 25, after which they’re given one year to live. But people can work to earn more time. So as long as their time doesn’t run out, they never die… unless they’re murdered or die in accidents. Basically, the rich can live forever and the poor try to survive day-to-day.
Will Salas (Timberlake) works a menial job, earning barely enough time to keep himself alive until one night he meets a wealthy man named Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer) in a bar who has over a century on his clock. After Salas helps save his life, Hamilton gives him his remaining time and dies. Salas uses Hamilton’s time to cross “time zones” into New Greenwich, a wealthy district, and meets Sylvia Weis (Seyfried), the daughter of a wealthy citizen.
He soon finds himself accused of murdering Hamilton and is forced to go on the run, pursued by the “Timekeepers,” a police force led by Raymond Leon (Cilian Murphy) and a mob-like group called the Minutemen. Salas and Weis end up going on a crime spree, giving time to the poor.
The film is helmed by Andrew Niccol, director of “Lord of War” and producer for “The Truman Show.” Niccol does a good job with this film, not overdoing the action or drama, which serves to increase its appeal.
But one flaw is that the film doesn’t explain the whole history of the time currency system very clearly. We’re given a very cursory explanation of the whole idea and left to figure the rest of it out on our own.
The casting for this movie is spot on, and while there wasn’t a great deal of emotional depth in the script for the actors to work with, each cast member played their parts well.
There wasn’t anything “bad” about the film, however, there wasn’t much that really made it stand out from other action movies. The Robin Hood-esque storyline has been done before and the premise of the movie didn’t add much to it.
While “In Time” wasn’t anything overly special, it was still entertaining and definitely worth seeing for anyone who’s craving a good action movie.
Luke Bohannon