Director: Richard Fleischer
Writers: Stanley R. Greenberg, Harry Harrison
Stars: Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Leigh Taylor-Young
Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes
Link: https://amzn.to/3ebiVpq
Synopsis
We get a “growth montage” showing progress and the ever-increasing population in the cities and waste, pollution, and trash everywhere else. Credits roll.
The year is 2022 in New York City, whose population is 40 million, five times the reality of the real 2021. Detective Thorn watches an ad for high-energy plankton crackers, called Soylent Green. He talks to Sol Roth, his elderly roommate. Their home is full of books, and the old man doesn’t like the food nowadays, “tasteless crud,” he says. “Greenhouse effect; a heat wave all year long. How can anything survive like this?” he asks.
Thorn leaves the apartment, and he literally has to step over people on the way down the stairs. People are living in the middle of the streets so the cars can’t drive.
Simonson is a rich man who buys a video game machine for his young companion, Shirl. Shirl goes to the store and buys the rarest thing they have: actual beef. A named Gilbert breaks into Simonson’s apartment to kill him. The two have a short discussion and Simonson essentially lets him do it.
Thorn is assigned to investigate. He meets Tab Fielding, Simonson’s bodyguard and Shirl. Apparently, Shirl is “furniture” or a paid permanent companion that goes with the apartment. Thorn is more interested in the fabulous apartment than he is anything Tab can tell him. Thorn steals the liquor and a bar of soap from the apartment. The disposal unit takes Simonson’s body away in an actual garbage truck.
Thorn takes the booze, books, and some food home to Sol, including the beef. Sol literally cries at the sight of the meat. At the police station, we see that all the cops are at least a little bit corrupt.
We see a banner, “Tuesday is Soylent Green Day.” People line up for water in jugs, and it’s wall-to-wall. Thorn follows Tab Fielding, as he’s the prime suspect in the assassination. He talks to Tab’s “furniture.” Later, Sol prepares all the food Thorn stole and shows him how to eat it. Thorn doesn’t know what to do with an actual apple. Sol does research and finds that Simonson had ties to Santini, the governor, and he was also a board member of Soylent, the company that controls the food supply for half the world.
We see that the man who hired Gilbert the assassin is talking with Thorn’s police captain. Thorn goes back to talk to Shirl, and they have sex after Thorn samples everything else in the apartment.
Thorn goes to a church that now serves as a very overcrowded shelter for hundreds of people. The priest is confused and in a daze but tells Thorn that he “knows the truth,” but won’t go any further than that.
The police captain tells Thorn that the Simonson case is closed. Thorn says Captain Hatcher was bought, which he was. We see that Governor Santini is behind the coverup. Tab Fielding goes to confession and kills the priest that Thorn had spoken to.
Thorn is demoted to riot control duty, watching the people in the Soylent Green lines. The supply runs out, and the crowd is sent home. Instead, they riot, and it gets pretty messy. They literally scoop up people and dump them into trucks. Gilbert shoots at Thorn in the commotion but is killed by a scoop-truck. Afterwards, Thorn goes and front Tab Fielding and threatens to kill Tab if anyone else comes after him.
Meanwhile, Sol goes to The Exchange, a special research place; what he finds is too hard to believe.
Thorn goes to see Shirl to relax. When he gets back to his place, Sol has left hime a note saying, “I’m going home.”
Sol then goes to a place where there are many people in line. The orderly takes him to the back, where people take good care him; nice music, a good drink, and a massage. Then they push the button and Sol watches flowers and nature on a big screen. Thorn arrives and watches with him; he never believed the world used to be so beautiful. Sol tells Thorn what he learned, but we don’t hear what he says. Sol then dies; this whole place is a suicide factory.
Thorn follows as Sol’s body goes into the garbage truck, and he hops aboard to see where it goes. He watches the garbage truck empty its contents, hundreds of bodies, into a chute. He hops off the truck and goes inside the industrial complex. The bodies go down a conveyor belt and dumped into a tub and converted into… Soylent Green wafers.
Thorn runs out of the complex and back to town. There’s a shootout, and Thorn gets shot by Fielding. Fielding follows the trail of blood back to the church, but it’s so crowded he can’t find Thorn. The two men finally face off, and Thorn stabs Fielding. Captain Hatcher comes in and Thorn tells him to go to The Exchange for proof. Thorn explains, “The ocean is dying; Soylent Green is made out of people.” Hatcher promises to tell everyone. Will he tell them?
Commentary
It’s not exactly apocalyptic, but it’s certainly dystopian. The overpopulation, unceasing heat, and lack of real food are always present in the film. Even in this world, with real food impossible to find and everyone showing quiet desperation, lettuce doesn’t impress Thorn.
There’s a video game in the film but for the most part, there’s very little attempt to show any futuristic technology. Thorn and Sol’s home is full of books, but no computers are seen anywhere. Also, is it just me, or have garbage trucks not changed at all in the past fifty years?
There’s no monsters here, no blood, and no gore, but it’s definitely a horror film. The world itself is the “horror” in this one. The cannibalism thing is there, but that’s only right at the end; the real horror is trying to live in this Hell-hole of a world. The system here literally feeds upon itself.