In Time

In a future (or alternate) world, everyone is genetically programmed to die at 26 unless they buy more time, and time is literally money; you work (or steal) to add to the clock ticking on your forearm, you spend time to buy things (“Please deposit one month”). In this setting, a young man living hour to hour (Justin Timberlake) breaks into the upper class, where he shakes up a wealthy time-broker (Vincent Kartheiser) and his bored daughter (Amanda Seyfried). Another off-the-wall sci-fi premise from writer-director Andrew Niccol. With Niccol, sometimes the magic works (The Truman Show) and sometimes it doesn’t (S1mOne); here it works pretty well if you don’t look too closely. It’s a mix of The 39 Steps and Bonnie and Clyde, with an excellent Cillian Murphy as a Javert-like “timekeeper” on Timberlake’s trail. J.L.