Line #1 Film/InTime


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/in_time_poster.jpg]]
2
3	->'''Philippe''': For a few to be immortal, many must die.\
4	'''Will''': No one should be immortal, if even one person has to die.
5
6	A 2011 Sci-Fi Action/Adventure film by Creator/AndrewNiccol starring Music/JustinTimberlake, Creator/AmandaSeyfried, Creator/CillianMurphy, Creator/VincentKartheiser, and Creator/OliviaWilde.
7
8	In a retro-future when the aging gene has been switched off, people [[PayingForAir must pay to stay alive]]; though everybody stops aging at 25, stamped on their arm is a clock showing how long they have left to live, a year, which starts ticking the instant they reach 25 years of age. To avoid overpopulation, time has become the currency and the way people pay for luxuries and necessities. The rich can live forever, while the rest try to negotiate for their immortality. A poor young man is accused of murder when he receives a fortune of time from a dead upper class man, and is forced to go on the run from an FBI-like police force known as the Timekeepers. The poor also live in fear of the Minute Men, a ruthless gang that robs people of all their time, killing them.
9
10	It shares quite a few elements from "Time is Money", a short story by [[ComicStrip/ThePhantom Lee Falk]] first published in ''Magazine/{{Playboy}}'' in 1975. Is strongly reminiscent of both ''Film/LogansRun'' and ''Film/TheFugitive'', though it's not a remake of either. It also shares some elements with ''Film/{{Equilibrium}}''. Creator/HarlanEllison[[note]][[TradeSnark © 2005 Harlan Ellison]][[/note]] sued to try to get it withdrawn on the basis that it was an unauthorized adaptation of his short story ''Literature/RepentHarlequinSaidTheTicktockman'', but on November 4, 2011, he ultimately agreed to a settlement similar to what he got for ''Film/TheTerminator'' (i.e. his name will be added to the credits). He ultimately dropped the suit altogether before the month was out, having seen the film.
11
12	Not to be confused with 2013's ''Film/AboutTime'', which is about time travel.
13
14	----
15	!!The film provides the following tropes:
16
17	* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Set in the year 2169. Given the true chronological age of some of the characters, the current system of having one's lifespan as currency has been in place since at least the 2050s.
18	* AbsurdlyHighStakesGame: The rich indulge in this with their time. Will wins 1000 years thanks to it. It is notable that Will placed a bet of all the time he had remaining; while merely an expensive hand to the other players, it was literally life and death for him.
19	* AbusiveParents: While the context makes it (a little) sympathetic, some of the ghetto residents are shown to wish they could use the time of their pre-25 children as well as their own. Also extremely disturbing is the mother holding her newborn child, looking at him tenderly and speaking in a sweet voice of how she would like to shorten her baby's life span.
20	* AgeInsecurity: Played with. Characters will describe their age as being "25 for X" years, which is valid considering they stop aging at that point, alleviating many of the undesirable parts of getting older. But the social insecurities haven't exactly gone away, as evidenced by a prostitute who didn't like being called out for "pushing sixty".
21	* TheAgeless: Everyone has this kind of immortality, so long as they can keep time on their clock. It's implied disease has been eliminated, but people still need to eat and drink.
22	* TheAlcoholic: Borel is seen adding alcohol to his morning coffee, drunk at the bar later on, and ultimately [[spoiler:dies due to alcohol poisoning when Will gives him a decade]].
23	* AlasPoorVillain: Raymond Leon. Once serene music plays out in five seconds before he times out, you can't help but feel bad for him.
24	* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Sylvia becomes interested in Will the moment she sees that he runs while others walk, and takes more risks than the rich people she's surrounded with.
25	* AmbiguouslyJewish: The Weis family. They have a common Jewish name and conform to a number of GreedyJew stereotypes.
26	* AndTheAdventureContinues: [[spoiler:After Weis' 1,000,000-year capsule is leaked to the public in Dayton, the factories there shut down due to the citizens having enough time to move elsewhere. Meanwhile, Will and Sylvia move onto robbing bigger banks, still seeking to crash the system.]]
27	* ApatheticCitizens: The reason Will's mom dies. It's also notable that, at several points in the film, people are just dead on the ground from timing out and no one has the courtesy to move the body.
28	* ArcWords:
29	** "Is it stealing if it's already stolen?"
30	** "For a few to be immortal, many must die."
31	** "You can do a lot in a day."
32	** "Don't waste my time."
33	* ArtisticLicenseBiology: The idea that you can commodify lifespan is pure fantasy; aging is not caused by an "aging gene," but rather through a number of factors. Damage is sustained to DNA due to repeated splitting and copying necessary for cellular division, the skin becomes thinner and wrinkled with age mainly due to exposure to ultraviolet radiation, joints wearing out simply due to use over time, and so on.
34	* ArtisticLicenseEconomics: Even as a parable about the IdleRich being AllTakeAndNoGive, the elites of this society seem more concerned with preventing overpopulation than maintaining a working economy; they've hiked the prices of goods and lowered wages so much that entire communities have less lifespan to their name than hours in the day - go to work every day or die. Added to that, there is the problem that they are using as currency something with a large intrinsic value of its own: time. The whole point of money is that it's a medium of exchange; ideally, it should have no value of its own.
35	* AuthorTract: The movie was released in the wake of Occupy Wall Street and boy, does it show.
36	* BadassLongcoat: All field timekeepers have one.
37	* TheBeautifulElite: And not just the elite. Not only is everyone in this world 25 or younger, they all happen to be able to pass for supermodels. A notable exception would be the fat guy behind the food counter.
38	* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Sylvia was bored with her sterile rich life and wanted a life of excitement and adventure. She got it. She [[LampshadeHanging lampshades this]].
39	* BelievingTheirOwnLies: Raymond Leon honestly thinks the system is necessary to maintain the population and that charity actually harms the poor.
40	* BioluminescenceIsCool: Humanity has been engineered with bioluminescent timers in their arms.
41	* CallBack: At the beginning of the movie, Will’s mom runs into his arm in need of time, but dies just before reaching him. At the end, Sylvia does the same thing, but reaches him just in time.
42	* CameBackWithAVengeance: A nicer variant of this trope in the second and third act of the film. After Will's mother dies, he embarks on a mission to steal from the rich, distribute to the poor, and hence crash the system in the process.
43	* CapitalismIsBad: This film connects capitalism with [[TheSocialDarwinist social darwinism]] in an [[invoked]]{{anvilicious}} way. Wages are decreased and prices are increased by fiat, meaning the purpose of the system is to ''[[KillThePoor Work The Poor To Death]]'' at a controllable rate.
44	* CastFromLifespan: This has actually replaced money. Everything is paid for in time, salary is paid out in time, and running out of time is instant death. The wealthy have centuries -- or even millennia -- to spare, while the lower class live day to day.
45	* ChekhovsSkill:
46	** The trick Will's father taught him for winning "fights".
47	** And, earlier in the film, his friend commenting that he stopped losing money at poker when Will stopped playing.
48	* ConvenientlyAnOrphan: Rachel's death is part of the inciting incident.
49	* CoolShades: Phillipe Weis's bodyguards wear [[SinisterShades pretty ominous sunglasses]]. Will then uses this to get close enough to him to hold him hostage.
50	* CrapsaccharineWorld: The beautiful and serene domains of the rich, where you spend your time worrying about accidents and assassinations while making sure to be as publicly lazy as possible and trying very hard to avoid thinking about what you are doing to the rest of mankind.
51	* DarkAndTroubledPast: Even before his mother died, Will used to fight people for their time. It's even hinted that he might have killed a few guys this way. This skill, "time fighting", [[ChekhovsGun becomes very useful later on]].
52	* DeadlyGame: "Time fighting", a deadly variation on arm wrestling. It's more of a personal endeavor rather than a recognized sport, however. Since time is transferred simply by aiming one's wrist up (lose time) or down (gain it), the game consists of two people locking at the wrists to transfer time, then trying to force the other guy to drain his clock. Loser dies, though there are probably friendlier versions of the game that don't play for such high stakes since they do it on the street.
53	* DeadpanSnarker: Sylvia doesn't seem to care that she and Will are wanted by the law.
54	-->'''Sylvia''': We look cute together.
55	* {{Determinator}}: Leon is dead-set on catching Will, as evidenced by him being the only officer willing to jump out a second-story window to continue the chase. [[spoiler:It also serves as one of several hints that Leon, unlike his partners, is more familiar with the ghetto than he likes to let on.]]
56	* DisappearedDad: Will's father died when he was very young. It's implied he was killed for trying to help the poor and break the system.
57	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Daughter of a wealthy family gets kidnapped and assists in a series of bank robberies. Patty Hearst, anyone?
58	* DungeonBypass: A lot of establishing shots show how thick and secure the time zone barriers are... which Will and Sylvia completely ignore by going through the toll booth.
59	* EmbarrassingRescue: Though it's subtle, Leon is clearly bothered when Will gives him several hours of time prior to stealing his car, since Leon wouldn't have had enough to get back to the other Timekeepers otherwise.
60	* EvilBrit: Fortis, the Minute Man gangster.
61	* ExactTimeToFailure: Enforced by the clocks. The twist is that it's mutable.
62	* FailedASpotCheck: After Will's failed attempt to ransom Sylvia, he lets her call her father to be rescued while watching out for her across the street. Leon proceeds to park on the side street and walk up to Will gun-drawn, both of which Will would have noticed if he had the presence of mind to turn his head even once.
63	* FictionalCurrency: A person's remaining lifespan can be extended or reduced depending on how it is exchanged. One's time, quite literally, is money in this world.
64	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
65	** One of Leon's goons remarks to him that he's cutting his time refill very close about half-way through the movie.
66	** During the chase, Leon is shown to be willing to take risks that none of his fellow Timekeepers will, such as jumping out of windows.
67	* FromZeroToHero: Will goes from a nobody in the ghettos into a notorious criminal, with Sylvia as his partner-in-crime. Will (and by extension Sylvia) are however considered [[JustLikeRobinHood criminals only to the rich who are manipulating the system, and heroes to most people in the ghetto]]. From the perspective of the people who wished to maintain the status quo, he's more of a FromNobodyToNightmare.
68	* GoldFever: What does Borel proceed to do after receiving 10 years from Will? Buy some household items? Get some supplies for his new born baby? No, he [[spoiler:heads to the bar and spends it on booze. When Will comes by his apartment again, looking to get some of that time back, his wife says, "He drank himself to death with nine years on his clock."]]
69	* GreedyJew: The Weis family are AmbiguouslyJewish financiers who suck the life out of the general population. They are specifically called usurers at one point.
70	* HandWave: The movie opens with one to avoid explaining why and how the time system was set up.
71	-->'''Will''' (voiceover): "[[invoked]][[MST3KMantra I don't have time to worry about how it happened. It is what it is]]. We're genetically engineered to stop aging at 25. Trouble is we only live one more year... unless we can get more time."
72	* HatedByAll: Everyone hates Leon. Once he got an unwanted rescue and attempts to leave, they break off the phone cord and started jeering him on when his partner came to pick him up. [[spoiler:It doesn't help the fact that he was like them]]. Also, his colleagues only carried out his orders because he's the leader of the Timekeepers, so once he times out, none of them continued pursuing Will and Sylvia, not even his partner.
73	* HateSink: Fortis. While the main antagonistic force is the system, Fortis is not part of said system and only serves as proof of how people can take advantage of it and use it to make innocents suffer severely.
74	* HeroicSacrifice: Henry Hamilton, a rich man who gives away almost all of his time to Will, leaving himself only enough to walk over to the nearest bridge and die. The amount? Over 100 years. Will was pretty close to the wire at the time, making it likely that his own heroism in saving the guy could have been a fatal endeavor.
75	* HighClassGloves: Sylvia's party dress includes a matching pair of long gloves.
76	* HonorBeforeReason:
77	** Fortis is a subversion. He says that he "doesn't kill in a man cold blood" despite being a murderous gangster, and challenges Will for a time fight instead of just killing him. However, his motivation behind this action is less about honor and more because he cannot take away someone's time if they die from trauma. Fortis has a very good reason to not just go around shooting people.
78	** Will also counts. He gives Raymond 4 hours to leave the ghetto safely, despite barely having ten himself. And this is after Raymond just pointed a gun at his head.
79	* IdiotBall: Most of the cast, at one point or other. Several characters in particular show a suicidal disregard for their time allowance.
80	** Will's mother knows she'll be running a ''very'' tight schedule after repaying her loan, but still gives Will 30 minutes just so he can "enjoy his lunch". [[spoiler:Even had the bus fares not doubled, she was leaving herself just 30 minutes of leeway.]]
81	** Will himself keeps coming into large quantities of time, then giving it away and leaving himself only a few hours, instead of, say, a year. [[spoiler:Especially ridiculous at the end, when he has a million years and gives all but about half an hour away, predictably leaving him seconds from death at the climax.]]
82	** Raymond, being a Timekeeper, habitually lets his clock run low so as to avoid being a target for thieves. However, he puts off a top-up with only 45 minutes of time left, just so that he can chase after Will, even though he's in his car and could refill mid-chase. [[spoiler:Like Will's mother, his complete lack of foresight/planning ends up killing him.]]
83	** Aside from his team of incredibly ineffectual bodyguards, Phillipe Weis has very little security protecting his fortune, though this is possibly due to complacency from living in a Utopian timezone. Less forgivable are his banks and lending shops, who leave the vault open during business hours, apparently have no security guards, and have nothing in place to stop a simple ram-raid, even in the rougher areas.
84	* IdleRich: The rich actually have time to waste, and thus spend all their days doing things very slowly.
85	* IJustShotMarvinInTheFace: Sylvia non-fatally wounds Leon when he's about to arrest Will. She states that while she '''did''' fire intentionally, she [[AccidentalAimingSkills wasn't actually trying to hit Leon]], just scare him. Later on, she (accidentally this time) shoots the hood of the car they're trying to steal, scaring the crap out of both Will and the driver.
86	* ImmortalityImmorality: The point that Will (and, before him, Henry Hamilton) is trying to make is that the wealthy stay immortal by exploiting the poor, who live day-by-day and collapse dead when they don't even have enough time for rent.
87	* InherentInTheSystem: Will's mom Rachel is compassionate, beautiful and intelligent, with fifty years of life experience in a 25 years old body and the capacity to live forever. The system casually murders her, for no other reason than it being ruled by people who consider her to be a worthless waste of space. The rest of the story goes out of its way to show that this kind of tragedy happens all the time, since it's simply how the system works. It is also clearly established that the lack of time is artificial. ''Everyone'' could live forever, but the government chose to murder poor people in the interest of avoiding overpopulation, and to keep the rich families rich. Whether or not space expansion would be a viable option isn't mentioned, probably because nobody cares.
88	* InspectorJavert[=/=]SympatheticInspectorAntagonist: Timekeeper Raymond Leon straddles the line between the two. At first, he just seems to be doing his job, making him the latter. As the movie presses on, however, there are hints that Leon isn't doing this just because he feels it's the right thing to do. [[spoiler:The final revelation that he's from the ghetto and is making sure that people from there stay there actively makes him Javert.]]
89	* InternalizedCategorism: Welcome to a system where the poor are taught to hate themselves while the rich spend their time frantically trying to avoid seeing what kind of world they are building... failing that, they are likely to commit suicide.
90	* IronicEcho:
91	** A positive example: Will's mother dies as they run to embrace each other, which had they succeeded would have meant her survival given Will's surplus. The same scenario happens again in the climax, [[spoiler:between Will and Sylvia, only they reach each other in time to survive.]]
92	** Another positive example in "Is it still stealing if it was stolen to begin with?"
93	* JustLikeRobinHood: The whole point of the plot is Will stealing time from the immortal and giving it to the dying.
94	* KarmaHoudini: The bus driver who heartlessly kicks Will's mother off when she doesn't have enough time to get a ride[[spoiler:, which causes her to spend it all [[RaceAgainstTheClock running to get to her son]] until she dies]].
95	%%* PayEvilUntoEvil: When Leon is stranded in the ghetto, away from his car and access to his time allotment, he's forced to walk until someone picks him up. The citizens break the phones so he can't call for help. Seemingly ''the entire town'' takes some time from their busy day to mock him, '''for the entire walk'''. You'd almost feel bad for him if he weren't portrayed as anything other than a jerk who does nothing to help the common man.
96	* LampshadedDoubleEntendre: "After I've taken you, I'll take her. ''[{{Beat}}]'' And her time too, of course."
97	* LeonineContract: A way of life when bankruptcy kills you and everyone can see how much time you have to live if you refuse the deal. Pawn shops will fleece customers if they think they can get away with it (can't afford to wait a day until we open again, sucks to be you) while the biggest mogul in the country runs payday lending facilities with interest rates that are implied to be staggering (despite being similar to real-life credit card rates, and a fraction of pay-day loan companies' interest rates).
98	* LifeWillKillYou: Played straight in the story, subverted by the setting. Within the story, characters die from the smallest mistakes, such as only keeping enough cash for the bus ride home (without knowing that the fee has been increased), or getting so absorbed in your duty that you don't take the time to refill your clock when you have the chance. On the political level, however, it is made clear that the system has been engineered for these kinds of mistakes to occur. The government is murdering their citizens on a genocidal level, while building in an element of randomization as an excuse to pretend that it's the victim's own fault.
99	* LittleBlackDress: Sylvia wears one to a party, and then for much of the film.
100	* LongevityTreatment: The aging gene has been "shut down", freezing aging at 25. But to prevent overpopulation and present an anvilicious message about income disparity, people are programmed to die at a certain time and use their remaining time as currency.
101	* TheMagicPokerEquation: The river completes Will's straight, allowing him to beat the set of queens of the villain. Right after he called some big bets with a trash hand preflop and with a gutshot afterwards. Seriously, if the villain had called him out for his stupid play, he'd been right. DontTryThisAtHome, you will probably lose all you got.
102	* AMatchMadeInStockholm: Will kidnaps Sylvia at gunpoint and almost kills her in a car accident. They fall in love.
103	* MeaningfulName: The poor live in Dayton, which seems to be named for the fact they usually have just a day or two on their watch. The rich live in New Greenwich, presumably named for the place in London where all time is measured from.
104	* MeaninglessVillainVictory: Fortis tries to shake down a guy for his time, but Will's Robin Hood antics have given him enough of a surplus to buy a gun. Since he can't strongarm the guy, Fortis just shoots him in a moment of anger, thus killing him and rendering his surplus time unobtainable.
105	* ModernStasis: The movie is set in 2169, but aside from advances in genetic engineering, which started the whole thing, progress seems to have ground to a halt. In fact, Dayton seems to have less technology than current times. People rely on payphones, for example. Justified, as many modern conveniences would probably make time earning easier...and that defeats the purpose of the system currently in place. Though we only see them in Dayton, where people probably have more urgent things to spend their sparse time on than mobile phones.
106	* MomentKiller: Every time Will and Sylvia get close, ''something'' always shows up to move the plot along.
107	* MovingTheGoalposts: People in the ghetto get hit with this hard. Will goes over his previous quota, only to be cheated out of a bonus because the quota went up. His mother is forced to walk home when the bus fare doubles for no reason. Will's later criminal activities only make the problem worse; to compensate for his thefts, the costs are jacked up.
108	* TheNameIsBondJamesBond: In the casino, Will introduces himself as "Salas, Will Salas."
109	* NervesOfSteel: Will keeps a cool head even when he has minutes or seconds left on his clock.
110	* NiceToTheWaiter: Shortly after getting his initial boon of time, Will notably tips a waitress a week. In return, she gives him some tips about his appearance before he hits the casino.
111	* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Will's mother gives him thirty minutes for a proper lunch. Five less and she would have survived.
112	* NoNewFashionsInTheFuture: In keeping with NiceToTheWaiter. Only the Timekeepers wear garb that could be considered out of place, and it's more like a uniform than anything else.
113	* OhCrap:
114	** The default reaction of anyone who is almost out of time, except [[NervesOfSteel Will]].
115	** Weis delivers a great one when Will gambles himself down to a few seconds during the poker game; the only reason you'd go that far all in is that you're either suicidal (probably not, if you're still in New Greenwich), or you've got a monster hand.
116	* OlderThanTheyLook: Once you reach 25, you stop aging.
117	* OneHeadTaller: Bordering on HugeGuyTinyGirl. Creator/AmandaSeyfried (Sylvia) is ''so'' much shorter than Music/JustinTimberlake (Will) [[note]](He is 26 cm / just over ten inches taller)[[/note]] that she has to wear extremely high heels in almost every scene just to keep them in shot together.
118	* OutlawCouple: Will and Sylvia start stealing from Sylvia's dad. But [[JustLikeRobinHood they distribute all the wealth]].
119	* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish: The combination to Phillipe Weis' time vault is "12021809": Charles Darwin's birthday. Sylvia needs one short guess to get it.
120	* PoliceAreUseless: As Will points out, the Timekeepers are all-too willing to unfairly punish him for getting a huge amount of time, both times in ways that were perfectly legal, but refuse to lift a finger to stop serial time thieves who regularly kill people by draining their clocks.
121	* PopulationControl: An example which the vast majority of society isn't really aware of. The cost of living is so high that most people don't live too much longer than a normal human would. If everyone lived forever, the population would explode. Instead, the lower class lives and dies as normal (or even younger) by today's standards, while the upper class collects the time they spend, giving them hundreds or even thousands of years to spend as they please. This way, only a select few get true immortality.
122	* PrecisionFStrike: In a film notably devoid of profanity, Will delivers the lines "Shit!" and "Un-fucking-believable!" within two minutes of one another.
123	* PrettyInMink: A white fur wrap is worn by Sylvia when she first meets Will. A lady she and Will hold up wears a sable jacket.
124	%%* ProperlyParanoid: Philippe Weis.
125	* {{Pun}}: The whole film is full of them. Much of the dialogue references taking time. In real life, the expression means "it took us this long", but in this movie, it means "we literally gave out this time".
126	* PunchClockVillain: While Leon's motives go beyond mere law enforcement, his colleagues are far more sympathetic. They're only following orders most of the time, point out Leon's highly negative interpretation of Will, and Leon's partner ultimately resigns at the end.
127	* RaceAgainstTheClock: A literal example considering what happens if you run out of time.
128	* RagsToRiches: Zig-zagged. Will starts off rarely waking up with more than a day to live. Then he gets a century all at once. Then he loses all but two hours, and has to work his way back up, through a series of pawnings and thefts, to enough to purchase a hotel. Then he loses almost all of it again, and so on.
129	* Really700YearsOld: The cast to varying degrees, considering all humans are genetically engineered to not age after 25. Weis states that he's "25 for the 85th time," which either means he's ''much'' older than his wife, or that his mother-in-law is actually at least 150 years old, which makes her the oldest person in the film.
130	* RetroUniverse: Crossed with ModernStasis, though in some ways the world looks more like a futuristic version of TheSeventies and TheEighties. Justified in that there's really little incentive to make any significant changes when there's all the time in the world.
131	* RevolversAreJustBetter:
132	** The gang leader, Fortis, set one down at the bar.
133	** A Minute Man and a random civilian were holding one when they met. Too bad for the latter, though.
134	** Another confrontation with Will and some Minute Men had one of them holding one before he died.
135	* SciFiBobHaircut: Sylvia sports this hairstyle, as it's shown in the poster at the top of the page too.
136	* ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules: Raymond Leon, when Weis tries to bribe him with effective immortality. [[spoiler:Part of the reason is that ItsPersonal.]]
137	-->'''Leon:''' There isn't enough time in the world.
138	* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: Philippe Weis. Unfortunately for him, Raymond Leon [[ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules cannot be bought]].
139	* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Leon's partner resigns at the end of the film, leaving his gun on the way out.
140	-->'''Female Timekeeper''': What do we do, sir?\
141	'''Jaeger''': Go home.
142	* ShownTheirWork: While the headscratchers page is chock full of places where this movie goes wrong, the idea of the Timekeepers getting free time forever but paid in daily allotments to deter crimes against them is a pretty sharp idea.
143	* SkinnyDipping: Will and Sylvia do this at the beach near her mansion.
144	* SlobsVersusSnobs: But in TheFuture.
145	* SmugSnake: Phillipe Weis, as played by the apparently type-cast Creator/VincentKartheiser.
146	* TheSocialDarwinist: Phillipe Weis, who constantly quotes things like "Survival of the Fittest" and "Natural Selection". [[spoiler:His obsession bites him in the ass as it allows Sylvia to easily guess his safe's combination: 12021809 - UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin's birthday.]]
147	* SpottingTheThread: Will stands out in New Greenwich because he has no bodyguards, runs instead of walking, and eats fast. This makes it pretty easy for the Timekeepers to track him down. [[spoiler:Will is able to peg Leon as a former resident of the ghetto in much the same way, since he will take risks his colleagues won't and can keep a running pace with Will.]]
148	* StealthPun: The poor are living paycheck to paycheck.
149	* StripPoker: Will and Sylvia play this.
150	* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
151	** The time allowance system grants people as much time as they want, but that doesn't stop people from dying either by murder or their own self-destructive efforts. Will's friend gets ten years and ends up drinking himself to death with one year.
152	** Henry Hamilton lampshades the inherent problem with the time allowance system: there's no place to put people who live for ever. The system just creates an ever-growing population which necessitates culling to keep resources and consumption at a reasonable level.
153	** At the other end of the issue, Raymond Leon points out that despite Leon and Sylvia's efforts, the time currency system won't be altered as it's the closest setup people have to immortality.
154	* SupernaturallyYoungParent: Because the aging gene has been switched off, Will's mom looks like she's in her mid-twenties. The same goes for Sylvia's mom Michelle and ''her'' mom Clara.
155	* TallPoppySyndrome: It's revealed through the Minutemen and [[spoiler:Leon]] that the whole time system is also self-perpetuating. To win big in the ghetto, for instance, is a death sentence since ''nobody'' wants to feel put down. If everyone's poor, after all, then no one deserves any better.
156	* ThemeNaming: Most of the characters are named after famous watch makers. (Citizen, Victa, Salas, Borel, Fortis, etc.)
157	* ThrillSeeker:
158	** It is implied that is part of the reason why Hamilton, a relatively wealthy man, seek out the ghetto to literally throw his time away. If you are going to commit suicide, might as well make it enjoyable.
159	** More than once Sylvia had expressed how rigid and boring her life was before meeting Will. This would explain her later decision to turn against her father and become fellow outlaws (and lover) with Will in fighting the system.
160	* TooDumbToLive:
161	** Leon actually does this twice ([[spoiler:and the second time actually costs him]]): he's so obsessed with catching Will that he neglects to get his daily time allotment, leaving him with too little time to survive. [[spoiler:The first time, Will gives him several hours so he'll survive, since Will is stealing his car and thus access to his allotment. Leon doesn't have that luxury the second time, and Will ends up taking his allotment once Leon times out.]]
162	** [[spoiler:Borel dies of alcohol poisoning. As someone who is already established as an alcoholic, he really should know better. Even worse, unless he was buying drinks all around, it's indicated he bought ''a year's worth of alcohol''.]]
163	* TrailersAlwaysLie: Watching the trailer it looks like Olivia Wilde's character will be a main character and the love interest of Justin Timberlake's character. She is his mother. Oh and [[spoiler:she dies in the first half-hour of the film.]]
164	* WatchThePaintJob: It doesn't take long before the shiny new car Will has bought ends up totaled in the ditch with the tires blown up. Fortis lightly admonishes his goons for doing such a good job of disabling it, calling it a "gorgeous car."
165	* WhoWantsToLiveForever: Why one of the rich people decides to end it all... Not because he has lived too long, however, but because he can't live with having his immortality.
166	* WorldOfPun: There are quite a few puns in the film along the line of 'time is money' or 'don't waste my time' or 'your money or your life... except your money ''is'' your life'.
167	* WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide:
168	** The government has created a system where each citizen has a gun to his or her head, and people drop dead in the streets (which is commonplace enough that everyone shrugs it off) as these guns are constantly triggered. What to do in such a situation? Why, constantly repeat how “necessary” the system is!
169	** It's never explained what happened to those born before the current system was put into place. One would presume they'd die out eventually (given Weis's age, they'd surely have died of natural causes) or be given treatments that would give them timers like everyone else. The government would, effectively, have to force people to have their unborn children undergo genetic therapy to limit their lifespan.
170	* WritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: The drive from New Greenwich to Dayton seems to take as long as is necessary to keep the plot going. Early in the movie, Will and Sylvia started to run from the Time Keepers at night, and when they reach Dayton it is almost noon (though it can be assumed that they need to hide somewhere and don't spend the entire night driving). Near the end, Raymond was able to chase them from New Greenwich to Dayton, despite having less than an hour on his clock when the chase started. He also notably avoids taking his own allotment en route, [[spoiler:which ultimately kills him.]]
171	* YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: Will has this reaction when Leon simply will not quit chasing him, being willing to jump out a window his partners wouldn't and continuing to pursue after being shot at repeatedly.
172	* {{Zeerust}}: Related to the ModernStasis and RetroUniverse examples, some of the technology present has either remained static from ThePresentDay of 2011 when the movie was made, or else even regressed, e.g. the reversion to pay phones and landlines instead of cellphones, let alone smartphones. There are also no robots and no {{Flying Car}}s of any kind; all cars stay firmly on the ground on more-or-less 20th-century wheels. Possibly the rich having access to immortality has slowed the need for constant innovation.

Context Film / InTime