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It's that peculiar combination of imagination AND lack of attention to detail that makes Soylent Green such a frustrating experience. But there's more.

So much more.

In the midst of all this madness is Frank Thorn (Charlton Heston), who ekes out a living as what passes for a New York City police officer in a world where crime is so rampant even Judge Dredd would have a hard time giving a shit about it. Thorn lives in a not so bad looking tenement, cheerfully shaving with rusty razors while listening to his roommate, a retired cop named Solomon (Edward G Robinson), wax philosophical about the good old days when they had improbable places called “grocery stores,” where you could buy strange, alien things like “meat” and “strawberries.” What we SEE is two cops, the old mentor and the hotheaded young gun - and two generations of misery, dutifully exchanging stilted, expository dialogue and riding a bicycle to generate electricity.

But what we HEAR is akin to an old man bragging about the big fish he caught on his trip to Montana while his roommate rolls his eyes and waves it off. They almost make starvation look fun, which is why I have a hard time buying it. I've been chewing my nails while I write this, and that's more food than these two guys supposedly eat in a week. And yet here they are, goofing on each other like an episode of Perfect Strangers while two dozen people breathe each other's farts in the stairwell outside because they have no place else to sleep. But it's okay. I'll accept it. Fine. One is old enough to remember a better world, and the other has never known anything else and has learned to accept it.

Fine. I get it. I see what you're doing. Let's move on.

On the other side of the tracks are a very, very select few who live in the kind of opulence befitting the year 2020. They enjoy luxuries like “free time” and “air conditioning.” They inhabit spacious, luxuriously carpeted apartments. They dress every day like it's New Year's Eve and play futuristic “video games” while the vast majority of everyone else starves and dies. Not surprisingly, these people are called “lawyers.” But in this world, even the wealthy get by on wilted lettuce and furry carrots, and even the wealthy get murdered. That's how Thorn ends up investigating the death of William Simonson (Joseph Cotten) corporate counsel for Soylent Corporation.

And the hilarious thing about it is that right from the start, we know far more about the crime than Thorn does. Yet, we're forced to watch him fumble through his half ass investigation anyway. Thorn initially takes little interest in his assignment, clearly disillusioned by the need to investigate murder in a world where death is literally for dinner. Plus, he's easily distracted by the lifestyle of this former lawyer who can afford extravagances like unspoiled meat, bourbon or hot and cold running water. Thorn quickly concludes Simonson was deliberately targeted, then plunders the dead man’s home of what he can, bringing home books, booze, and a piece of meat in such modest condition it makes Sal cry.

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