In his gripping new thriller "Children of Men," director Alfonso Cuaron takes the classic movie formula of a cynical tough guy required to see an innocent party to safe harbor, and shoots it to pieces. Based on a novel by British mystery writer P.D. James, the film works both as a thriller and as a satisfying political and social drama. Set in 2027, with the world gone to hell in a handbasket, the film paints a bleak portrait of a future in which complete global human infertility has meant that no babies have been born anywhere in 18 years.

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