This is prime agitprop.

The idea is that technology has developed so that everyone could *theoretically* stay 25 years old forever. However, everyone only has a certain amount of time (shown by a counter on their wrist), and if they run out they instantly die (for reasons that the film never explains). Time is used as both a currency and as a timer for how long people have to live, they pay rent with time, they buy food with time, they work for time, etcetera.

There are frankly monstrous levels of inequality and the film repeatedly makes the point the point that the system is set up to benefit those at the top and to limit social mobility at all costs (to the degree that a group of time-police turn up and confiscate all but 2 hours of the time of the main character, who's a working class guy from the slums, who got given over a century by a suicidal rich person who explained how the system was set up for the purpose of exploitation). The story says at various points that the titular capitalist makes nothing of value, and explicitly says "is it stealing if he already stole it?" in reference to them robbing and then distributing a time-lenders owned by said capitalist.

It also says that the main cop managed to pull himself out of the slums by making sure that no one else would ever leave and

It has loads of other stuff like that in it that I can't remember right now. All in all it's brilliant agitprop with the only exception being the bit where the main character gives the cop some time so that he'll just survive long enough for other cops to arrive and take him to withdraw some of his time from the bank or something (on the other hand though this is right after the main character's shot him in the chest and just before they steal his car and they make the point many times later that being a cop is scummy).

btw the film is also really horny so the two main characters are basically always either in really tight clothes or half naked (or entirely naked at one point).

  • Iminhere3000 [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Yeah this movie is great. Makes a good double feature with Elysium, another underated dystopian film from the last decade

    • LENINSGHOSTFACEKILLA [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Elysium bored the ever-loving FUCK out of me, EXCEPT every single frame with Sharlto Copley. Him playing an unrelenting psychopath was just so much fun. I adored it, and I want him to play the villain more. Really, I want him to have more work no matter the case, but especially as a villain.

      • Tatoes [none/use name]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 years ago

        you know what movie bored the shit out of me? Interstellar.

        Yeah....like, immediately when his daughter said she cracked the code from her weird space-time-closet-dust that said, "STAY," I thought: Oh, he's going to end up in a dimension and try communicating with himself, isn't he? Also, Matthew McConaughey constantly playing a brainy-southern-time-is-an-illusion-big-head-thinky-man thing is getting a bit stale. And the grown-up version of the daughter was just teerrrrrrible acting. Just, baaad. Christopher Nolan seriously thinks waay too highly of himself and it's annoying. This post has nothing to do with anything, I just recently saw the movie and needed to get that off my chest.

        Same goes for Interstellar 2: Brad Pitt version. Boring-ass movie, why did I watch you? I guess Tommy Lee Jones was cool.

        • Nagarjuna [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Also, the whole point of the movie was dumb. Why would you continue the human race if you're not there to enjoy it?

      • Iminhere3000 [none/use name]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 years ago

        Didn't find it boring at all. I know it got panned pretty hard when it was released but you are all WRONG AS FUCK. Neill Blomkamp will eventually be reassessed and considered the best sci-fi director of our time. Yes, even Chappie is great

        Edit: also in regards to Elysium I am just a big sucker for the work of godlike genius Syd Mead. I just want to live in his imagination

        • LENINSGHOSTFACEKILLA [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          I really enjoyed Chappie. Elysium just didn't do it for me. Hard to say why. I only watched it the once and I just didn't give a fuck unless Copley was on screen.

          I'm totally down for Blomkamp's work. I really wish he got that Alien project off the ground.

        • bruhlmao [none/use name]
          ·
          4 years ago

          District 9 is an all time classic and has better effects than any blockbuster that has come out in the past 10 years