Review Recall: Soylent Green
Hello people. I’m back with another Review Recall. Sadly, it could be my last as I may decide to ditch the concept sometime soon. It’s just quite an easy column to write when I don’t want to spend hours pondering over a piece. This week’s addition is probably a lesser known film than I normally do. Today, we’re heading to 1973, to the Richard Fliescher post apocalyptic, satirical sci-fi Soylent Green.
The Story: It’s the year 2022 and the world is in pretty bad shape, to say the least. The population has grown to astronomical lengths, money is low and food is incredibly scarce. To sum up, New York City is a slum.
Detective Thorn (Charlton Heston) is a Cop in this city of ruin. He gets the job done, but looks after himself in the process. However, Thorn’s world gets turned upside down when he is called to investigate the murder of William R. Simonson, a wealthy man and a board member of the biggest food company in the world.
Quickly, Thorn is marked for murder as he is caught up in a conspiracy, concerning the man’s bodyguard, a bodyguard and the food company.
The Film: It might be just me, but I had never heard of Soylent Green before my tutor suggested that I watch it. That being said, Soylent Green is treads the fine line between Sci-Fi and Satire brilliantly.
The dystopian New York City is almost a character in itself and breaths life in to the movie even before the plot gets going. People sleeping in streets, savouring whatever food they have, carrying weapons for safety. The world is a grim picture of what the future could be. The scary thing is, nearly forty years from when the film was made, it’s not entirely untrue.
Even though the world aids the movie, it is the story itself that really makes Soylent Green strong. Primarily what we have is a dystopian detective story. And what a well crafted detective story it is. The movie starts off with one problem but as Thorn digs deeper, more questions are asked and very few are answered, twisting and turning the plot, until the climax and chilling twist of the movie.
The only problem with the story is it does take a little while to get going. Even at a meagre 97 minutes the movie feels a bit long.
The Performances: It might just be the 1970s way of acting, but most of the performances are quite dated. Instead of the realist approach we would see today, we are treated to overblown, over the top performances from across the board.
That being said, Charlton Heston’s Thorn is pretty great. He starts off as a bad ass cop, who only cares for himself, but showcases real emotion by the end of the film. Emotion for his old friend and the shocking truth behind Soylent Green. Though, the rest of the cast are dated, Heston certainly isn’t. A true leading man.
The Verdict: Not as intricate as Orwell’s 1984, but definitely a good sci-fi, which comments on today’s
society as much as it did in the 1970s. 8/10.
Cheers for reading.
Until next time, enjoy the show.
Daniel Morris.
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