Soylent Green

Director
Richard Fleischer
Stars
Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Leigh Taylor-Young

★★★

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It's the year 2022…and it's time to check out the latest dystopian science fiction film to catch up with the present day. 1973's Soylent Green stars Charlton Heston as NYPD detective Frank Thorn, who lives with his aged friend Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson). Due to over-population, food has become scarce and the bulk of the population is provided with a communal food supply developed by the Soylent Corporation. When Soylent board member William R. Simonson (Joseph Cotten) is murdered, Thorn is assigned to the case, which eventually leads towards a horrifying discovery.

Directed by Richard Fleischer, Soylent Green is a dystopian science fiction film loosely based on the 1966 novel “Make Room! Make Room!” by Harry Harrison. The story for the most part is a police procedural, as the protagonist of Frank Thorn is assigned to investigate the murder of Soylent board member William R. Simonson. Thorn is assisted by Simonson's concubine Shirl (Leigh Taylor-Young) and the two end up engaging in a love affair. Thanks to revelations discovered by his friend Sol Roth, Thorn ends up travelling to the Soylent factory, where he makes a horrifying discovery about the Corporation's most popular product Soylent Green.

There are arguably two scenes that Soylent Green is most memorable for. The first involves a crowd of people rioting when the supply of the titular food supplement runs out, resulting in the arrival of large riot-control trucks that literally scoops up the crowds. The second is the final moments of the film, where Charlton Heston's Frank Thorn yells out the true ingredient of Soylent Green.

Spoilers Beyond This Point

Probably the most unfortunate thing about seeing a film that is nearly five decades old is that the big reveal is no longer really a reveal and is actually part of the pop culture surrounding Soylent Green. That of course is the revelation in the final scene of the film that the titular Soylent Green supplement is not made from plankton as reported earlier in the film, but instead from the decided dead bodies of people, with there being memes available of Charlton Heston yelling “Soylent Green is People!”

Having known this revelation long beforehand, it kind of make Soylent Green as a whole less effective as a film, since this revelation doesn't until literally the final scene of the film. The rest of the film is more or less a procedural set within a dystopian 2022, where the world is overcrowded and only the elite has access to nice apartments and real food items.

However, Soylent Green is notable for featuring the final screen performance Edward G. Robinson, best known for his role in the 1944 film noir Double Indemnity and he previously acted with Charlton Heston in 1956's The Ten Commandments. Reportedly, Robinson was suffering from terminal bladder cancer onset and he ended up passing away only 12 days after filming wrapped. Probably Robinson's most memorable scene in the film comes from his character of Sol Roth visiting a euthanasia clinic after learning the truth about Soylent Green, where he is treated to a visual panorama of the world as it once was, before passing away.

As is the case of many dystopian films from decades past, Soylent Green does come off as quite dated, especially watching the film in the year it is set. It is probably safe to say that humanity has yet to resort to cannibalism for survival, despite the film being somewhat correct when it comes to things like overpopulation and our environmental impact.

Ultimately, Soylent Green is a film that is all about its final reveal and since I already knew about it going in, I didn't really find too much else about the film to hold my interest.