A Cinephile’s Critiques

Directed by Richard Fleischer, 1973 (Color, 7:3, Mono, 100′)
Starring Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Leigh Taylor-Young, and Chuck Connors

What would a corporation think the perfect world would be like?

Probably, it would be a place where consumers will take whatever they can get and they’ll want even that so badly that they’ll accept rationing when a company just can’t churn out enough of it. Corporations might also like to see governments so weak, corrupt, and busy quelling riots of unemployed people that they can’t bother with irksome tasks like regulating commerce. And if corporations decide that it would be profitable to turn the air green with smog and chew up all the natural resources, then that’ll probably be for the best anyhow. At least that way consumers won’t be able to live off the land and will crowd into the cities, which would make product distribution very efficient. And, if corporations should happen to run out of the usual raw materials for their products, then, considering the circumstances, no one would probably notice, or care, if they decided to use the term “human resources” in a new, and innovative, way.

Soylent Green shows us that world. The funny thing is, you might not think it looks as perfect as the MBAs think it will look. Come to think of it, all those “developing” countries who’ve decided to welcome transnational corporations into their economies don’t seem too sure it’s quite as perfect as they were told either. And Soylent Green looks a lot like those places.

Ah, well. We have other things to worry about. Detective Thorn, for instance, has to investigate a poorly-disguised murder. It’s kind of an odd murder. For one thing, the victim sat on the board of directors for the most perfect corporation in the world, Soylent. And, no one, not even the victim, judging from the crime scene, seems too bothered about his demise. What a strange place this perfect world is.

Strange place or not, Charlton Heston seems perfectly comfortable in it. His police investigator really appears to have grown up around there. And Edward G. Robinson plays the wizened old bibliophile, who can still remember when all this stuff seemed like a good idea, very well. Leigh Taylor-Young and Chuck Connors give their characters just enough warmth that you might be able to sympathize with them. And playing those roles that way makes sense, in this context. After all, in the perfect corporate world, we might have worse things to worry about than hookers and thugs.