Soylent Green

Released: 1973
Drama, Sci-Fi
Starring: Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young
Director: Richard Fleischer
Running Time: 97 minutes
Rated: PG

The breakdown: A detective lives in an overcrowded and polluted world where the only source of food comes from a little tiny compressed square.  He's assigned a murder case that turns out not to be murder and finds out what everyone is really being fed.


A New york police detective lives in an overpopulated and completely polluted world of the future.  Natural resources are exhausted and everyone has to have a roommate since the world is so crowded.  Food sources are also exhausted and people rely on a company called Soylent Industries to provide a little green or brown square from plankton of the ocean (so everyone is told) for meals.  The detective gets assigned to a murder case that isn't what it appears to be.  A member of the Soylent board is apparently the victim of murder but it turns out it was a hit and someone wants to cover up what the real food source is for Soylent Industries. 
Rich people get things like their own apartment complete with "furniture" already installed.  The term furniture also includes women that stay with the apartment. 
The world is so polluted that you can't go to a park anymore or forest because they don't exist.  Animals have gone extinct and you can't have a chicken sandwich because there are no more chickens.
It's a really bleak (but totally possible) outlook for the future of our world.
I really didn't know what to expect when my husband wanted me to see it, but it was a good movie.  You have to be able to overlook the older time frame when it was made, but it had a plot that I've never seen before so it was thought provoking.

I give it 3 1/2 out of 5 because it's a bit silly here and there, and pretty depressing overall, but still a movie worth watching.