Soylent Green (1973) Movie Review, Trailer, Film Still and Poster

USA 1973
Director: Richard Fleischer
Cast: Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young, Edward G. Robinson, Chuck Connors, Joseph Cotten, Brock Peters
Rating: PG
Language: English, Spanish
Release Date: 19 April 1973
Running Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

The Movie Review

Soylent Green film still 1

Det. Thorn and Shirl


SOYLENT GREEN
Storyline:
Cast:
Ending:
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We've got a very interesting movie this evening. Not only because of the message it carries and how it depicts human behavior in harsh times but because it also predicts what would happen in year 2022. A year which is far from the year when the movie was released, 1973, but it's not very far from today, 2011. Soylent Green is headlined by Charlton Heston, an actor that probably most of you familiar with from his legendary performance in Ben-Hur (1959). Soylent Green, a movie that needs to be watched by everyone, especially for us modern people who start to have a lack of appreciation on our Planet Earth.

And did you know guys? That on this very day, Monday 31 October 2011, United Nations (Perserikatan Bangsa-Bangsa) had estimated earlier that the 7 Billionth baby would be born! Hmmm... sounds like over-population is not something science fiction anymore! I wonder what would the 86-year old Harry Harrison --the original writer of Soylent Green-- has to say about this matter...

Where's Wally?!

Soylent Green follows the life of a police detective named Thorn (Charlton Heston). It is set in year 2022 in the future New York City where the population has hit terrifying numbers of 40,000,000 people. Soylent Green itself refers to a square-biscuit-looking food that's lauded as miracle food made of high energy plankton gathered from the oceans of the world. New York City is over-populated, over-crowded, starving city with more than 20,000,000 unemployment and even the stairs of an apartment where Thorn is living are dwelled by dozens of people who couldn't find any place else to sleep. Fresh water is rationed, Food is scarce, Fruit is extremely rare and expensive (it costs you 150 dollars a jar) and only those who have the money and power can find a piece of beef to chew at. Even funeral doesn't have ceremony anymore.

Hot, Cramped, Hectic! Pah!

Detective Thorn is assigned to investigate the murder of a wealthy old man, William R. Simonson (Joseph Cotten), who lives in a very luxurious apartment. It is seen however, that this man is deliberately accepted to be killed and even the killer himself is asking his permission first. But by the time of his killing, there's no one around to provide Det. Thorn any valuable information since even the beautiful girlfriend, Shirl (Leigh Taylor-Young), of the murdered man was shopping at that time. Thorn however suspects the bodyguard for having to do with the killing. What will Thorn find in his investigation? And what does it all have to do with Soylent Green?

Makes me hungry!

In the world of Soylent Green, we got to see and feel several things that might just be happening in the future... Overpopulation! The combination of the script, the editing and the directing really sucks us into this eerie situation where the usual modern amenities like water, air conditioner and soap and even pencils are something very very luxurious. The way Thorn is enjoying the water, smelling the soap, and munching the food would make the viewers feel grateful and worry at the same time. Of course, this movie comes with flaws, for instance, the year 2022 depicted here is far more "primitive" even compared to our year now 2011, the TV set is still old and of course Internet does not exist :-) and Soylent Green moves in a rather slow pace with not many actions or very gripping scenes to behold. It is the story and prediction that sells. When I saw this years and years ago, I was simply just amazed by the concept but of course I didn't pay much attention afterwards and then forgot completely about it once I hanged out with my friends. But seeing how Rapidly-Increasingly-Scarily crowded my home town of Jakarta has been becoming in this couple of years alone kinda made me re-watch Soylent Green (1973) for a couple of times now, and after watching Al Gore's documentary film An Inconvenient Truth (2006), it really is a scary premise that Soylent Green delivers.

Soylent Green is a movie based on a novel written by Harry Harrison in 1966 titled "Make Room! Make Room!", and even though there are some movies deliver similar theme of over-crowded Earth and its effects such as the gripping outer space Sci-Fi Pandorum (2009), but I do hope some filmmakers would come up with the more gripping remake (rumored to be made in 2012) of Soylent Green in the near future but still retains the same Year of prediction, 2022, and backed up with scary facts of our today's World.