DISTRICT 9

I remember a song I used to sing as a kid. It was a round, that included the verse “Don’t throw your junk in my backyard / My backyard’s full”. It’s human nature to throw up our hands and say ‘I don’t care where this goes, but it can’t stay here’. It takes some true thought, and effort to come up with a better idea. Even if one can come up with a better idea, more often than not, the better idea never goes to plan – even if it seems like a great idea at the time.

The story begins by combining faux news reports and documentary interviews. Using this rather realistic style, we learn that twenty years ago, an alien ship entered Earth’s atmosphere, and came to a stop in the sky above Johannesburg, South Africa. No lights beamed down, no sounds echoed out – it just stopped up there and stayed. After three months, mankind gets curious/frightened/gutsy enough to send a team up to the ship, and try to force it open.

Upon breaking in, mankind is taken aback. There are no warriors in this vessel…no scientists either. What they do find, are scores of malnourished and sick beings. They have no discernible mission, and no apparent leader. It would seem as though the decent thing to do, would be to bring them down to earth, and try to incorporate them into humanity.

This is a great idea in theory, but eventually human nature kicks in. Humans and “prawns” as they’re derogatorily called, aren’t getting along, so much of the alien population is kept in a secured government camp named District 9. D:9 inevitably turns into a filthy and overpopulated slum. So at this point in time, twenty years after they first arrived, a government subsidiary named Multi National United (MNU), is given the task of moving them down the road to District 10.

Leading the way in this massive project is Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) – a man who looks like he should be fixing your T1 connection. He leads security teams into D:9 to force eviction notices on the prawns. It’s at this point, that the entire situation gets quite out of hand, and much more complicated.

DISTRICT 9 is in a class all its own where alien films are concerned. The prawns haven’t arrived here to invade, they haven’t arrived here to experiment. They’re just here, and just trying to survive. The movie isn’t interested in turning them into warriors, or mad scientists. Instead, this film wants to examine how we as a society continue to struggle to incorpertae that which is different than us into our world.

After this intriguing opening act, what makes much of the movie work is the acting of Wikus van der Merwe. He looks and acts the part – a field agent who is more parts desk monkey than he is an operative. The situation he gets himself into is terrifying, made all the more so by the continuing stream of symptoms he tries to deflect attention from. Every moment he’s on screen, van der Merwe never lets you forget how frightened he really is: both when he’s given an assignment far above his pay grade, and when that assignment essentially destroys his life.

My one problem with DISTRICT 9, is that it seems to lose its way towards the end. This is a film that begins as a comment on human rights, and issues facing refugees. In the end though, it gives a great deal of screen time to one long shoot-out. It doesn’t exactly drag the movie down…it just feels as though the story took the audience through an unmarked door in a back alley, only to cut through the kitchen and seat them in a prime table at The Olive Garden.

What it all means is that a film that begins as “brilliant”, becomes just “very good” by the time the dust settles. Try as it might though, the increase in action cannot sink this well thought out film. Indeed it endures, and leaves you with an experience that is disturbing, sad, and original.

Matineescore: ★ ★ ★ out of ★ ★ ★ ★

What did you think? Please leave comments with your thoughts and reactions on DISTRICT 9.