Soylent Green
 Theatrical release poster by John Solie | ||
| Starring | Charlton Heston Leigh Taylor-Young Chuck Connors Joseph Cotten Brock Peters Paula Kelly Edward G. Robinson | |
| Directed by | Richard Fleischer | |
| Produced by | Walter Seltzer Russell Thacher | |
| Editing by | Samuel E. Beetley | |
| Based on | Make Room! Make Room! 1966 novel by Harry Harrison | |
| Music by | Fred Myrow | |
| Cinematography | Richard H. Kline | |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer | |
| Released | Apr 19, 1973 in US | |
| Runtime | 97 minutes | |
| Country | United States | |
| language | English | |
| Gross | $3.6 million (rentals) | |
Soylent Green is a 1973 film set in an overpopulated futuristic Earth, which tells a story of a New York cop named Thorn (Charlton Heston), who is investigating a death of an upper-class citizen Simmons. Thorn finds himself marked for murder by government agents when he gets too close to a bizarre state secret involving the origins of a revolutionary and needed new foodstuff. On his way Thorn, and actually the whole world of this film, displays by his behavior, that the world has changed into the exact opposite of utopia. During some questioning of Simmons's "furniture" Shirl (played by Leigh Taylor-Young), the movie goes so far as to refer to women as "furniture", available on a personalized basis to that well-to-do citizenry that could afford "the very best". Anyone for "hot and cold running maids".
- Wikipedia review
By the year 2022, the cumulative effects of overpopulation, pollution, and an apparent climate catastrophe have caused severe worldwide shortages of food, water, and housing. There are 40 million people in New York City alone, where only the city's elite can afford spacious apartments, clean water, and natural food, at horrendously high prices. The homes of the elite usually include concubines who are referred to as "furniture" and serve the tenants as slaves.
Within the city, live NYPD detective Frank Thorn and his aged friend Sol Roth, a highly intelligent analyst, referred to as a "Book". Roth remembers the world when it had animals and real food; he has a small library of reference materials to assist Thorn. Thorn is tasked with investigating the murder of the wealthy and influential William R. Simonson, a board member of Soylent Industries. Thorn learns that Simonson was assassinated.
Soylent Industries controls the food supply of half of the world and sells the homonymous brand of wafers, including "Soylent Red" and "Soylent Yellow". Their latest product is the far more flavorful and nutritious "Soylent Green", advertised as being made from ocean plankton but is in short supply. As a result of the weekly supply bottlenecks, the hungry masses regularly riot and are brutally removed from the streets by means of police vehicles that scoop the rioters with large shovels and dump them in the back.
With the help of "furniture" Shirl, with whom Thorn begins a relationship, his investigation leads to a priest that Simonson had visited and confessed to shortly before his death. The priest is only able to hint at a gruesome truth before he himself is murdered. By order of the governor, Thorn is instructed to end the investigation but he takes no notice. He is attacked, during a riot, by the same assassin who killed Simonson but the killer is crushed by a police vehicle.
Roth brings two volumes of oceanographic reports, taken by Thorn from Simonson's apartment, to the team of Books at the Supreme Exchange. The books confirm that the oceans no longer produce plankton and they deduce that Soylent Green is produced from an inconceivable supply of protein. They also deduce that Simonson's murder was ordered by his fellow Soylent Industries board members, knowing he was increasingly troubled by the truth.
Roth is so disgusted with his life in a degraded world that he decides to "return to the home of God" and seeks assisted suicide at a government clinic. Thorn finds a message left by Roth and rushes to stop him but arrives too late. Roth and Thorn are mesmerized by the euthanasia process's visual and musical montage—long-gone forests, wild animals, rivers, and ocean life. Before dying, Roth whispers what he has learned to Thorn, begging him to find proof, so that the Council of Nations can take action.
Thorn boards a truck transporting bodies from the euthanasia center to a recycling plant, where the secret is revealed – human corpses are being converted into Soylent Green. Thorn is spotted and kills his attackers but is wounded. As Thorn is tended to by paramedics, he urges his police chief to spread the truth he has discovered and initiate proceedings against the company. While being taken away, Thorn shouts out to the surrounding crowd, "Soylent Green is people!"
- IMDB Review
In 2022, Earth is overpopulated and totally polluted; the natural resources have been exhausted, and the nourishment of the population is provided by Soylent Industries, a company that makes food consisting of plankton from the oceans. In New York City, when Soylent's member of the board William R. Simonson is murdered apparently by a burglar at the Chelsea Towers West where he lives, efficient Detective Thorn is assigned to investigate the case with his partner Solomon "Sol" Roth. Thorn comes to the fancy apartment and meets Simonson's bodyguard Tab Fielding and the "furniture" (a woman that is rented together with the flat) Shirl and the detective concludes that the executive was not the victim of burglary but executed. Further, he finds that Governor Santini and other powerful men want to disrupt and end Thorn's investigation. But Thorn continues his work and discovers a bizarre and disturbing secret of the ingredient used to manufacture Soylent Green.
External links
- Review Review Soylent Green on Internet Movie Database
- Review Soylent Green at the Turner Classic Movie Database
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