Justin Timberlake (Bad Teacher) hasn’t really had a sci-fi flick to boast about in the past, but in Andrew Niccol’s dystopian thriller In Time, he’s been given a unique opportunity to test out his acting skills in an imagined future in which time literally is money. Starring alongside Cillian Murphy (Tron: Legacy) and Amanda Seyfried (A Million Ways To Die In The West), he’s got a pretty strong cast to work with, which adds to the appeal of the action packed and deep thinking movie.
The story itself is an interesting dystopian “what if” that builds itself around a society in which there are no dollars or pounds, only seconds, minutes, days and years to trade with. In and amongst this messed up, futuristic world, Will Salas (Timberlake) scrapes together an hourly living right on the edge of his time-line counter, living life moment to moment, despite the steady tick of increasing time taxes from the ruling class.
His hand-to-timepiece lifestyle gets a shot in the arm when he saves Henry Hamilton, a time-rich and disillusioned member of the society’s elite, New Greenwich citizens from a gang that has set out to rob him. In and amongst the aftermath of the escape that ensues, Will finds himself the beneficiary of 116 years that Henry transferred over to him while he slept, leaving the socialite with no time and the quick suicide release that he went to the poor area of Dayton to find.
Will is also told by Henry before he clocks out that the time constraints imposed on them are the invention of the elite to keep the poor masses down, and when his mother’s life is cut short due to state inflation he rebels against the order of the society he lived in and heads to New Greenwich with his new-found time wealth. However, with Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy), a Timekeeper policeman on his tail for the death of Henry, and the hang he saved him from out for revenge, Will has a pretty epic fight for survival on his hands.
Things get even more fraught in New Greenwich as he gets to know a high ranking official in the city and his daughter Sylvia. When his past catches up with him with palpable pace, he takes Sylvia hostage in a last ditch effort for freedom. It leads on to an intense roller coaster ride of deep thinking proportions as the lo-fi science fiction action plays out with the moral dilemmas of the increasingly difficult situations that Will gets into as he strikes back against the unjust structures of the broken society.
There’s a brilliant tension that runs throughout In Time as the impact of time is omnipresent in every movement and scene, creating a lot of high pace action in a race against the clock to survive. Cillian Murphy does a lot to add to this as his hunt is relentless to bring down Will and restore order to Dayton, with the dark elements of his acting skills working well to give the film real menace.
Timberlake himself makes for a solid good guy to get behind, as he brings the underdog character to life. He’s backed up by a credible performance from Amanda Seyfried who is every bit the rebellious spoiled rich girl with a conscience that she’s supposed to be. They make for a good team and you definitely buy into the predicament they’ve both found themselves in, which makes the movie work conceptually, despite the wide gulf between our own reality and the setup of society in the movie.
However, it compensates further for this by highlighting the similarities between the two, giving the film a parable-like quality thanks to the mirror it holds up to our own lives and it’s allegorical parallels. Greed, power, money and deprivation are just as much an element in the real world as they are in Dayton and New Greenwich, along with the value of time and our craving to be ever young, making the movie incredibly relevant, as well as a great sci-fi thriller.
In Time is clearly not a film with a massive budget behind it, but what it does, it does well, making the movie go a hell of a lot further than you average action movie. It’s definitely worth a watch, so a good one to rent the download, but it could be watched a few times if you like the unique style as much as we do, making it a good option to be added to your DVD collection. Andrew Niccol has done an impressive job with the movie and we’re sure it’ll go down as one of those classic low budget releases that manage to punch well above their weight.
In Time DVD review: 4/5
