In Time - Dir. Andrew Niccol

According to statistics from the United Nations, there are now seven billion people inhabiting this planet and with this figure the issue of overpopulation is once again reignited. Andrew Niccol’s latest feature explores this concept of a dystopian future where the population is curbed by the time you are allowed to live for, and while it is a simple, yet innovative concept, it doesn’t quite live up to expectations. ‘In Time’ is the typical cinematic case of having a really interesting and promising concept, but being unable to capitalize on any of its potential, leading to a disjointed plot and a poorly paced narrative which ends up simply recycling the same old sequences again and again.

It is sometime into the future where time has replaced currency as the fruitful commodity of civilisation. Once every human being reaches the ripe old age of twenty-five years old, a clock begins on their arm which counts down the time until their death. Death can be postponed and time added to any civilian’s clock through the completion of work and other related day-to-day tasks within society. But with the cost of living continually rising, time starts to become an increasingly valuable commodity which thrives with the rich and desecrates upon the poor. Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) is just another patron of the ghetto; he lives his life from day-to-day with his bodyclock constantly teetering on the edge of expulsion, but after a chance meeting with a seemingly immortal wealthy socialite Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer), Salas is given the opportunity to experience the other side of the divide. Prosperity, bodyguards, and luxury await him in New Greenwich, a place where immortality is no longer a myth, but with his new found life comes new and dangerous obstacles for him to overcome.

Salas’s narration opens the picture by announcing that there isn’t enough time for him to explain why society is time-centric and biased heavily towards the wealthy, and initially this doesn’t provide any distraction from the narrative. But once the third act begins, plot holes begin to originate due to the lack of information being relayed to the audience. With a constant lack of engaging material to keep the audience hooked on the plot, the film becomes somewhat stale and formulaic. Also, instead of intertwining the plot with a deep-seated moral and financial message aimed primarily at those who are at the centre of the current economic recession, Niccol’s script fails to dutifully act upon the message it wishes to convey and stops short. This is no more evident than in the final concluding sequences of the picture, which contain some ambiguous socio-political sentiments regarding the nature and solidarity of the human race when it comes to change, difference and revolution. Despite gearing up to make a resounding point during its conclusion, ‘In Time’ instead decides to take the safe, Hollywood and financially friendly studio route instead.

Following on from its constant lack of engaging material, the nature of ‘In Time’s’ formulaic plot creates a repetitive sequence of events which becomes very old, very quickly. Once Salas has teamed up with a rebellious, yet incredibly wealthy socialite Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried), they attempt to repair their imbalanced society through a crime spree. Coming off as a futuristic Bonnie and Clyde, bank-robbing, hold-ups and Robin Hood-esque deliveries of time to people who are less fortunate becomes their mission. However, while this aspect initially provides moments of exhilarating action, the repetition of each sequence, almost down to a tee, quickly takes away from its impending impact. Essentially for the entire second act, and the beginning of the third, Salas and Weis relatively easily break into banks, steal time, distribute the time among the poor, and then hide in a downtrodden motel where they don’t expect to be found, until the street-smart Time Detective Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy) deduces where they are and initiates an attack upon their location.

This repetition becomes increasingly tedious as the remaining running time of the film dwindles by, resulting in a rushed and poorly crafted final act in which each character’s own stories are tied up quickly to give the appearance of some form of a conclusion as the final credits roll. Unfortunately ‘In Time’ has a very interesting premise, but Niccol’s failure to create an engaging narrative beyond the first act leads to a film which ends up regurgitating the same sequences over and over again as the characters motivations become devalued in the face of lacklustre set-pieces.