Is this the year's best film so far?

Rating: 10/10 (12 September 2009)

The premise is simple; why didn't anyone think of it before? An alien spaceship visits Earth and hovers over Johannesburg. It's big; there are over a million aliens on board but they haven't come to conquer Earth. It's as if they have been abandoned and are refugees from their own planet seeking asylum here on Earth. They are rounded up and housed in the kind of townships we associate with South Africa and it's not long before the townships turn into slums and 'racial' violence of a different kind from what we have become used to, (though maybe not that different), breaks out. In the end it's hard to tell who might be the bigger 'scum', the aliens or the Nigerians who move in and exploit them.
First time director Neill Blomkamp's astonishing feature begins in quasi-documentary mode before turning into the kind of action-thriller that would have done James Cameron proud when Cameron was actually making good movies circa the first Terminator, (clearly an influence). But Blomkamp is too canny a director just to pay homage and turn out a pastiche of better known sci-fi movies. Blomkamp is a South African who clearly knows a thing or two about the state of play down there, then and now, and while never shirking on the action "District 9" is also a heartfelt, thinly disguised satirical commentary on life in the townships. Aliens or blacks, it hardly matters; it's the white supremacists who are calling the shots.
There are no 'stars' in "District 9" and really only one central character, Wikus Van de Merwe, (a superb Sharlto Copley). He is the man put in charge of getting the aliens out of the townships and into what are essentially internment camps, (concentration camps might be a better term), and it is he who triggers the film's crucial plot device. The other two main characters are aliens, an adult, (the beautifully named Christopher Johnston), and a delightful child who turns out to be wiser than he first seems. It's a smart movie indeed when you start identifying with tentacled aliens, (named Prawns for reasons that will be obvious when you see the film), and even root for them over the humans. It is also a technical triumph with Trent Opaloch's brilliant photography and Julian Clarke's editing giving the movie it's edge even above the excellent special effects. The ending is open-ended leaving room for a District 10. Franchises seldom work though sequels often do. "District 9" might just turn out to be the best film you will see this year and if there is a District 10 I have high hopes.