Nothing Time

Cast: Justin Timberlake,Amanda Seyfried,Vincent Kartheiser,Olivia Wilde,Cillian Murphy

Rating: **

“A lot can be achieved in 24 hours.” In Time’s Will (Timberlake) is quite fond of this line. Consider all that the film achieves in just two — starting out as a bleak exposition on time as currency and men as cogs in a giant wheel,with the rich pulling the levers; ditching that for Will in a shiny suit living the high life; ditching that for Bonnie-and-Clydesque raids on “timelender” banks; ditching the funny side of it for some poker-faced loud-thinking; and before it gets too serious,ditching all of it for feeble jokes.

The script,by director Andrew Niccol (who also wrote The Truman Show,The Terminal),has a lot going for it. It’s sometime in the future,and the saying “time is money” has literally come true. People stop ageing at 25,but can survive just a year after that unless they beg,borrow,steal,buy or loan time. They buy things in minutes,hours,days or weeks; get paid in time; even exchange time — by locking arms together. An embedded,glowing clock in their forearms tells the time they have left.

Will,who lives in a “ghetto”,where everyone is short on money and hence time,is onto his last days. And then he hits the jackpot. A guy with more than a century on his clock gives him all of his years,after warning ominously that “many have to die for a few to be immortal”.

As he heads to the better part of town,who crosses Will’s bath but the pretty daughter (Seyfried) of the man wealthiest in terms of time. Sylvia has eyes — and some eyes they are — only for Will. The father has an interesting line here: “Strange times we live in. You are wondering whether she is my wife,daughter or sister (they all look 25,you see).”

Earlier,the sexy Wilde has a brief appearance as Will’s mother and a poignant sequence where she is running to reach him just before her time runs out. He is running from the other side,with Henry’s 100 years upon him.

However,in line with In Time’s inability to set a tone for itself,the film doesn’t ponder on this. Instead we get a lot of Timberlake and Seyfried,in scary stilettoes,on the run,of ‘Timekeeper’ and ‘Minute Men’ chasing them,and of experts staring pensively at giant screens and maps.

Will frets briefly the injustices of the system,while Sylvia’s maligned corporate father dwells on the “need to keep the balance” of the “Darwinian evolution”. None of which sounds,of course,as impressive as the Timekeeper,himself running out of time,instructing gravely: “Wire me my per diem.”