IN TIME (Andrew Niccol, 20th Cty. Fox, 2011)

The obvious joke after watching IN TIME (Andrew Niccol, 20th Cty. Fox, 2011) would be to demand of Justin Timberlake to receive your two hours back. It's too easy though and surely everyone associated with the film worked extremely hard to get it completed. Still, finding positive things to discuss is much harder than it appears with this movie. First and foremost, to be able to write, produce and direct a feature film is not only amazing but one hell of a shitty job. So I have to give Andrew Niccol credit for not only undertaking this task but for making a film that made money. The narrative to the film is actually a rather cool concept. Ultimately we already live in a world where time is our true currency, so Niccol's film is a great extrapolation of that. The film is highly stylized yet at the same time maintains a gritty realism to its overall look. The film is beautiful in every aspect, from cinematography to casting. BUT, the narrative for this film was awful. Here is a great indicator regarding a films narrative. Watch a film and never once question the narrative. No questions, good narrative, generally. Unfortunately for IN TIME I was asking questions about fifteen minutes into the film and never stopped. There were plot holes, continuity mistakes regarding the narrative, dropped story lines, randomly picked up story lines; this film had it all. At a certain point I turned to my roommate who I was watching the film with and told her "we are watching until the end, I want to see how bad this gets". And in that regard the film didn't disappoint. As Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried) ran to Will Salas (Timberlake) to get more time, to keep on living; as this unfolded exactly like it previously had between Will and Rachel (Olivia Wilde) I found myself rooting for random things to happen. Like maybe the space-time continuum would explode, or Will would trip, or anything but what did happen (surprise, she made it to him). These are things that shouldn't be happening when you are watching a film. Hey JT, can I get those two hours bud?