Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2771 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-09-29
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 93 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
While Soylent Green may be one of the many dystopian visions of the future, the film stands out because it's one of the few titles that addresses current environmental issues head on. Adapted from Harry Harrison's novel Make Room, Make Room, it gives us a nightmarish vision of an over-populated, polluted future on the brink of collapse--a vision that gets uncomfortably closer every year. Charlton Heston as police officer Thorn investigates a murder in between suppressing food riots and uncovers the nightmarish truth about Soylent Green, the new foodstuff being sold to the poor.

The film neatly combines police procedural with conspiracy thriller. Heston's scenes are counterpointed by more elegiac ones in which the centenarian Edward G Robinson as his friend Sol broods on the world he has outlived--his death in a euthanasia chamber is a gloriously lachrymose moment, which he plays to the hilt. Heston, too, is good as Thorn, a morally equivocal cop who loots the apartments of the victims whose deaths he investigates--he's a man just getting by in an impossible world.

On the DVD: Soylent Green on disc comes with a commentary from director Richard Fleischer, the highpoint of which is a memorable description of what it was like to work with the brilliant ailing, entirely deaf Robinson. He is joined by Leigh Taylor-Young whose work on the film as heroine led to years of serious environmentalist commitment. It has a useful contemporary making-of documentary and touching shots of Robinson's 100th birthday party with telegrams from Sinatra and others. The feature itself is presented in anamorphic widescreen with its original mono sound. --Roz Kaveney

Special Features
Commentary by director Richard Fleischer and Leigh Taylor-Young ('Shirl')
A Look at the World of Soylent Green (10 mins)
MGM's tribute to Edward G. Robinson's 101st film
Charlton Heston: Science Fiction Legend
Theatrical trailer(s)
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 (16x9 Letterbox)
Sound Mono

Synopsis
21st century New York City is (still) an overpopulated mess, and the only food left is Soylent Green, a soyabean and lentil concoction with an extra-special, government-mandated ingredient. As police detective Thorn (Charlton Heston) investigates a murder, he learns of a conspiracy with bizarre implications and discovers the horrifying truth about Soylent Green's secret ingredient. This is Edward G. Robinson's final movie, as the star died not long after filming his final scene. Based on Harry Harrison's "Make Room! Make Room!"

Customer Reviews

Aw, nuts. People were always rotten. But the world 'was' beautiful.
A bit dated but a very good movie. The basic story is a murder who dunnit set in the not so far future. But this isn't its strong side. It is a movie about a world that has squandered its resources and is crowded with overpopulation. Fresh food is only for the rich and employment for the lucky. Beautiful girls make their living as "furniture" in the houses of the rich while the common unemployed masses sleep anywhere they can. The futuristic view is very dim in a different way from Blade Runner, the world is a bright hot desert and people are obliged to live in overcrowded cities. Life is worth very little. The dialogue is very well written as well and the movie has plenty of memorable quotes. The best ones are between Det. Thorn (Charlton Heston) and Sol (Edward G. Robinson) an old man that remembers the world before the apocalypse. On a side note the main actress Leigh Taylor-Young became an active enviromentalist after playing in the movie and you will think about it too after watching it. Because even if it is a bit dated the message is still clear. Makes you think if you and I shouldn't be doing a bit more to preserve the world for future generations.

All in all a good sci-fi movie, with a well written dialogue and a horrible vison of the future. I give it 4 stars for these are all superior to the story itself, which is mostly dated. A worthy film for many reasons and worth the buy.

Would you believe bodyguards are buying strawberries for 150 D's a jar?

Recycling, when it's too late
In a grim and ugly future, the year 2022, a venal cop (though no worse than the rest and better than most) investigates a murder. It looks like an assassination. Nothing was stolen even though the corpse was rich and his apartment opulent beyond the wildest dreams of the masses of people living in poverty on the streets below. Did some sinister power need to keep this man quiet? What didn't they want him to say? Detective Thorn (Charlton Heston) has the help of his 'book', Sol (Edward G Robinson) who, lacking any high-tech resources such as computers, consults books and his old friends at a sort of information exchange facility. Everything is in short supply except humanity. Food and water is short, accommodation, power, clothing, paper - everything - and every space is filled with the swarming, desperate masses. Thorn finds a couple of weighty tomes in the dead man's apartment and passes them to Sol who almost swoons with delight at the sight and feel of real, solid, beautifully bound books. He takes them to the exchange and he and his friends mine their resources for information. What they find is unbelievable, horrible, repellent. Sol is moved to do something extreme, both to relieve his shattered mind of the intolerable shock and to lead his friend Thorn to irrefutable proof of the terrible truth.

The film was made in 1973 and it must be one of the earliest environmentalist stories to have a go at man-made global warming. Pollution is killing the oceans. The climate has heated the land, making farming unproductive. Winter has been obliterated by the 'greenhouse effect'. The only food most people can get hold of is a kind of biscuit called 'soylent'. It comes in three tasteless varieties: soylent red (ingredients unknown), soylent yellow (soya) and soylent green (plankton). However, as the oceans have been poisoned, the plankton is dying - so what are they really putting in the soylent green?

It's grisly. It's gripping. It's a good film and I recommend it.

The shape of things to come?
What a fantastic film. No special effects, no gore, no gratuitous sex, just a superb plot brought to life by superb acting and great filming.

The writer's vision of the future for the earth is chilling and he is perhaps closer to an accurate prediction than he could ever have dreamed of. The revelation at the end of the film is a real shocker!