Brothers

Since Homer, storytellers have known that the experience of war changes people. At the beginning of the last century, it was called shell shock. Today it’s known as post traumatic stress disorder. And with two lingering wars being fought by a too small volunteer armed services we’re going to see a lot more of it both in real life and in movies. If you thought the shell shocked Vietnam vet was a cliche, just wait.

Brothers is the story of Sam and Tommy Cahill. Sam, the older brother, played by Tobey Maguire, is a straight arrow marine, former quarterback, married to ex-cheerleader, Grace, played by Natalie Portman. Sam is getting ready to go on his fourth deployment to Afghanistan. He hates to leave his wife and two daughters, but he knows his duty and is enthusiastic about doing it.

Tommy, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, on the other hand is just getting out of jail. He drinks too much, has a problem with authority, especially their marine father, Hank, played by Sam Shepard, and obviously hasn’t amounted to anything. Grace doesn’t like him, and hasn’t since high school, and he barely knows his nieces.

When Sam’s helicopter goes down in Afghanistan and he’s presumed dead, Tommy starts to take an interest in his brother’s family. In fact, he starts turning himself around, getting a job with some high school buddies who do contracting. His first job with them is remodeling Grace’s kitchen. He’s good with the girls, taking them ice skating and generally being a good uncle.

Sam survives, however, and comes home. Or at least part of him does. He’s different now, quiet, obsessed with the idea that Tommy may have slept with Grace and scarred both physically and mentally. Because of what he had to do to survive, he can’t really talk with anyone about what’s bothering him. It’s only a matter of time before he goes off.

That’s a lot of plot to get through in just under two hours and director Jim Sheridan doesn’t quite pull it off. Instead Brothers feels like three rather hurried short films. There’s the pre-deployment setup, Tommy’s redemption when he has to step up and take responsibility, and Sam’s troubled return. Add to that Sam’s adventures during the war and you have too many themes, too many directions, and not enough time to develop any of them. Instead of a post-modern Odyssey we get a serviceable melodrama.

Maguire and Gyllenhaal turn in good performances as the brothers. Portman isn’t given much beyond the dutiful marine wife. Sam Shepard stands out.

Unfortunately, the whole winds up being something less than the sum of these parts. Hollywood will revisit this theme. There will be worse treatments, but there will also be much better ones.

An Education

Jenny Miller, played by Carey Mulligan is a precocious 16 year old English school girl  in 1960’s London. She’s in her last year of secondary schooling and is desperate to get into Oxford to study English. Not as desperate as her father, Jack, played by the great Alfred Molina, however. Jack has figured out all the angles to get her in and is constantly nagging her to study Latin (her weakest subject) and to take up the cello as an impressive hobby, but not to practice it too much, but to still stay in youth orchestra. Jenny takes these contradictory mandates in good humor but deep down, she is bored. She’s finds boys her own age to be either hopelessly awkward or immature, and she is starting to wonder why she works so hard to go to college so she can become a teacher or work in the civil service. She’s interested in art, film and music, things her prosaic parents would never understand, much less encourage. Jenny is yearning for broader horizons.

So when David, played by Peter Sarsgaard, who is twice her age, enters her life and starts taking her to jazz clubs, concerts and Paris, Jenny’s head is turned. She finds herself willing to throw away all her opportunities in order to have the exciting life that she dreams of right away. But of course it’s not real and David is not what he seems.

The seduction and betrayal of a young innocent girl seems like the plot of one of the eighteenth century novels that Jenny studies in school, but fortunately we are not in Thomas Hardy territory here. This is a lot lighter fare. In fact, although he is a skilled seducer, David does not always have the upper hand the relationship. Jenny is definitely smarter than he is and in some ways a lot more sophisticated despite her constricted upbringing.

The script by Nick Hornby is funny and moves the action along pretty quickly. Lone Sherfig’s direction perfectly complements it, although there are a couple of continuity problems where it’s raining one minute and the sun’s shining the next. I don’t usually notice those sorts of things unless there are really distracting.

Carey Mulligan is the real treat here. She delivers Hornby’s smart sarcastic lines perfectly. She’s so young and yet so smart that she is a willing accomplice in her own seduction and much more interesting than a clueless ingenue from another century. I hope she gets lots of work in the future.

Alfred Molina is terrific as the father, who is scared to venture much beyond the confines of their London suburb. Even in the early scenes where he is dictating to his daughter what she is going to do with her life, you can see his vulnerability.  Molina is a great actor and this is definitely on list of his best performances.

Peter Sarsgaard also turns in a great performance as a seeming man of the world who reveals himself to be something of an innocent himself in the end. Every moment of this transformation is believable and authentic. All the performances are terrific, from Emma Thompson as the disapproving headmistress of the school to Sally Hawkins in a role I can’t tell you about because I’d give away too much of the plot.

An Education is based on a memoir from famed British journalist Lynn Barber. So this is inspired by a true story. Obviously, she did overcome her times and her upbringing to live the life she wanted, a much better ending than what Thomas Hardy would have come up with.

 

Precious

With Precious, director Lee Daniels moves into the upper echelon of independent African-American directors. He has two peers are Spike Lee and Tyler Perry. Spike Lee’s approach is to be provocative, challenging the beliefs and assumptions of his audience, especially the white portion of it. Tyler Perry goes the Cosby route, setting his morality tales in the middle class. Daniels’ films are placed squarely in the ghetto, but he avoids the polemics of his two contemporaries.

Precious, played by newcomer Gabourey Sidibe is a 16-year-old girl, weighing over 300 pounds with one child by her father already and another one on the way. She’s smart but illiterate and therefore has a hard time in school. Mary, her mother, played by Mo’Nique is a monster, constantly criticizing and hitting her daughter. This woman is never in a good mood. When the principal discovers that Precious is pregnant again, she enrolls her in an alternative school, so that she can begin to study for her G.E.D.  This school is run by Ms. Rain, played by Paula Patton. The story is set in 1987 Harlem.

First of all, let me say that Lee Daniels is a master filmmaker. He uses the basic tools of film–shot composition, sound and especially editing to make a visceral and intense experience out of what is actually a standard Hollywood plot. When the shots start getting shorter, you know that Mary is about to do something horrible. The natural lighting, the grainy film stock, and the handheld camera all add to the dreariness of Precious’ world.

He also evokes tremendous performances from his cast. First and foremost, of course is the lead. Gabourey Sidibe is absolutely amazing as Precious. When she’s dealing with principals, teachers and social workers, authority figures that she has been taught to distrust, her face and her manner are closed, hostile, completely unwelcoming, but when she’s trying to please her impossible mother, she packs in all those emotions as well as fear and anger. There are also dream sequences where Precious imagines herself on the red carpet, posing for photographers with a handsome man by her side. In these her face lights up with charisma and warmth.

As Mary, Precious’ awful mother, Mo’Nique breaths fire, but also humanity into the character. She has her reasons for being the way she is. You don’t like her, but you understand her. Paula Patton plays Ms. Rain with steely compassion. Mariah Carey plays Mrs. Weiss, a social worker, with the same no-nonsense attitude.

There are a few nits to pick, mostly with minor plot points. At one point, Precious steals her file from the welfare office and you never see her get in trouble for that. Lenny Kravitz plays a male nurse who seems like he might be an interesting character but nothing is ever done with him. But even these flaws add to the sense of chaos.

Daniels has been criticized for not explicitly condemning the prejudice and poverty that lie behind the horrible social problems he depicts. The character of Mary, the mother, in particular has been criticized. Daniels shows her scamming the welfare system, lying about looking for a job, and trying to force Precious into signing up for it too. Conservatives will point to this woman and say “welfare queen,” and think that the filmmaker is saying that welfare is problem. But I think that’s too simplistic. Lee Daniels has taken a story and set it in this world. He is not afraid to let his characters be flawed and to let the axes grind themselves.

And in the end total fidelity to reality might be more effective at drawing attention to these problems than distorting the truth in order to belabor a point.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

We taxpayers and citizens of this country who depend upon the armed services to protect us, like to think of the branches of the military as efficient, no nonsense organizations.  Of course decades of news reports about wasteful defense contracts and endless military comedies in movies and on TV have put the lie to this myth. The military is the best funded item in our national budget and the most likely organization to be motivated by irrational impulses, namely fear of what the other guy is doing. If the Soviets are experimenting with psychic research then we’d better too, in case there’s anything to it.

The idea for The Men Who Stare at Goats was inspired by the unlikely reality of the First Earth Battalion.  I encourage you to look up the “reality” on Wikipedia. Grant Heslov, the director and Peter Straughan, the screenwriter have changed some names, added a few characters and tacked on a whisker thin plot, but otherwise they have the details right. There was a First Earth Battalion that trained its men in psychic techniques like remote viewing, teleportation, and telekinesis.  They did call themselves Jedi Warriors, and de-bleated goats were sneaked into Fort Bragg in the late 70’s, as well as other details.

The plot of the movie concerns reporter Bob Wilton played by Ewan McGregor stumbling onto to the story of this strange unit, when he interviews Gus Lacey, played by the always entertaining Stephen Root, who claims to have the power to stop the hearts of guinea pigs. Wilton thinks he’s crazy until he is shown a videotape of a guinea pig keeling over for a second and then recovering. Gus’s mother didn’t want him to kill the animal. Shortly after this encounter, Wilton’s wife leaves him for his boss and Wilton goes to Iraq to prove himself as a real reporter. While in Kuwait, waiting for a chance to get into Iraq, he meets Lyn Cassady, played by George Clooney and recognizes his name as one dropped by Lacey in his interview. Wilton latches on to Cassady and together they drive across the border on a bumbling adventure that can only be described as a comedic new age Apocalypse Now. Along the way, Cassady relates the history of the First Earth Battalion.

That structure is the film’s main flaw. The plot as I mentioned is perilously thin and the back story is the main purpose of the film. It’s almost a documentary, and I gather that there is a BBC documentary.

But it works because the great cast is able to pull off the eccentric performances required. Clooney’s comic chops are well documented and he captures Cassady’s contradictions and makes them work. He is a trained special forces warrior who happens to believe that if he hands his enemy a baby lamb or some other animal of peace, that will cause a transformation of his enemy’s intentions. It’s hilarious. Jeff Bridges, as Bill Django, the leader and founder of the First Earth Battalion, basically reprises his role as the Dude in The Big Lebowski, but he does it well and it’s funny. Kevin Spacey plays Larry Hooper, the villain, who wants to use these questionable practices to make money as a military consultant.

There is a dark side to this story too. A lot of the mental torture techniques used in the second Iraq emerged from ideas originated in this movement, namely the idea of playing loud music and noises to prisoners in order to break them. This provides the central conflict of the plot.

In that sense the script probably needed a few more drafts to massage all that into a coherent whole.  But even if it isn’t perfect, The Men Who Stare at Goats gets the job done.

Kind of like the military.

Where the Wild Things Are

Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are gets the feature film treatment from Spike Jonze.  I looked up Jonze in IMDB and discovered that the bulk of his directorial work has been in music videos and short documentaries about skateboarding, and of course Being John Malkovich which is a classic.  He is also listed as a screenwriter and producer Jackass.  For those who don’t remember, Jackass was a TV series on MTV, where a crew of stupid 20 somethings would perform idiotic stunts.  They made two movie, neither of which got very good reviews.  This surprised me because Jonze has such a good reputation in the Indie world.  Why would he get involved with such a dubious enterprise?

Thinking about it though, it is actually an apt pairing. Sendak has always been one of those children’s authors who reflects rather than teaches. This has gotten him in a lot of trouble with censors over the years. Where the Wild Things Are is a tribute to the anarchic energy of childhood. Max, dressed in a wolf suit and on a rampage of misbehavior is sent to his room without supper. From there he goes to a magic island inhabited by monsters, who make him their king. He leads them on a wild rumpus and everything is great for awhile. Soon, however, things start falling apart and Max sees that there are reasons for rules, so he returns to his family. Okay, so maybe Sendak teaches a little bit. But there is definitely a parallel between Max and the men-children in Jackass, who apparently never learned the lessons that Max absorbed in a little over 300 words.

To flesh out the spare story, Jonze turns to the monsters, giving them names, personalities and motivation. There is conflict in the group, KW, voiced by Lauren Ambrose has left and Carol, voiced by James Gandolfini is angry because KW was his best friend.  When Max, played by Max Records, enters the situation, he instantly identifies with the sulking and defiant Carol. At first the other monsters want to eat Max, but he talks his way out of it, promising to protect them and and make them happy. So they make him their king. But of course, he can’t do any of the things he promised and soon the groups internal dissension starts tearing them apart again.

One of the things that make me unsure about this film is it’s look. For a film based on a book with such lush and stylized illustrations, they chose to go with very mundane looking sets and locations. The monsters look great and their island, with it’s jungles and deserts is beautiful but hardly magical. Also the cinematography is dark and somewhat grainy. The colors are muted and the lighting is unimaginative. Since this is not an indie film made by amateurs, I assume this look was Jonze’s choice and part of his message. The monster part of the story is the fevered imagining of a fertile but undisciplined imagination. So maybe it would make sense to include these fantastic characters in a mundane setting. And yet Sendak didn’t do that in the book, so I’m not sure Jonze made the right choice. To me, it jolted.

There’s also the problem of intended audience. Wild Things is a picture book, intended for the youngest of readers. This movie will scare those tots to death. They should not see it. For example Carol, Max’s best friend among the monsters has a temper and one point chases Max across the island with murderous intent. A four year old isn’t going to react well to the cute and cuddly monster trying to kill the kid hero of the story. And yet they are going to want to see it because of the title.  I can see problems here.

On the other hand, Where the Wild Things Are is better than the awful Dr. Seuss adaptations that have cropped up recently, and I think Sendak, who is listed as a producer on the film, would scoff at my worries about terrifying young kids. Life is dangerous and scary and you can’t always shield kids from it. And that line between safety and freedom is what the book and movie are all about. So maybe I shouldn’t complain.

Bright Star

In 1818, the poet John Keats, here played by Ben Whishaw, moves in with his best friend Charles Armitage Brown, played by Paul Schneider. The two occupy a house in Hampstead London near the residence of the Brawnes, a widowed mother and her three children. The oldest, Fanny, played by Abbie Cornish, could be a heroine straight out of a Jane Austen novel. She’s opinionated, outspoken and sure that she knows what’s best for everyone. Keats, on the other hand is our archetype for the romantic era poet, dressed in dark colors, obsessed with death and indigent, dependent on Brown and others who recognize his talent, even though most of the world doesn’t.

In the romantic tradition, these two bicker at first. He thinks she is shallow, since she is always talking about fashion and knows nothing about poetry or literature. She thinks he is condescending and cold. When she sees him with his dying brother, however, she begins to come around and eventually they fall in love. The problem is that he has no income and can’t support her. Fanny’s mother is against any union for that reason. Brown opposes it because he fears that Fanny will distract John from his poetry. The couple persists and carry on a chaste, formal and distant love affair for three years. She serves as his muse.

John Keats died in 1821 in Rome of tuberculosis. He was 25.

All the performances in this film are excellent, but the leads stand out. Abbie Cornish has done a few of these costume dramas and excels at them, but I have to believe that this is her best work yet. She portrays Fanny as a solid sensible middle class oldest child, willing to take on responsibility. But there is also a playful romantic streak in her that causes her to fall for a poet with no prospects. Cornish captures that. And at the climax where she hears of Keats’ death, she is devastating.

Likewise Ben Whishaw doesn’t play Keats as gloomily as he might have. He throws a rugby ball around with Fanny’s brother and sister and is considerate and kind enough that eventually, Fanny’s mother agrees to the marriage, although it is on the eve of his departure for Rome and therefore too late. Keats doesn’t force his genius and sensitivity on others, although you can see it. He is humble and human, although in a very awkward way. Fanny teaches him a lot about the main topic of his verse, namely love.

Jane Campion writes and directs with the steady hand of a costume drama veteran. The film unwinds at a stately pace and is beautifully photographed. She uses Keats’ own words extensively and this sometimes drags the story to a halt but that is a cavil. The worst thing that can be said of Bright Star is that it’s not as good as The Piano, but she may not make a better movie than that.

Bright Star is a well made and touching romantic film.

The Informant

In one summer we go from Public Enemies, a film that suffered from too much fidelity to its true story, to The Informant which plays fast and loose with the facts of its equally true inspiration for comic effect. The latter approach works brilliantly this time.

The Informant is based on a huge price fixing scandal that rocked agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland in the early nineties. The key figure in the scandal was Mark Whitacre, played by Matt Damon, an up and coming executive with the firm. It’s not exactly clear why Whitacre decides to turn informant. He is a rising star in ADM with a huge salary and some dirty secrets of his own that don’t come out until later, so he has a lot to lose. This ambiguity is part of the character.  Whitacre, as played in the film–an important distinction here– is an habitual liar, who craves attention and can’t even be honest to himself. He spins a web that starts with a lie to his boss about a saboteur in the company. This brings in the FBI in the form of Special Agent Brian Shepard, played by Scott Bakula. Shepard does his best to follow the convolutions thrown at him by Whitacre, especially when the price fixing conspiracy is revealed.

The main draw here is Matt Damon’s excellent performance. He subsumes himself completely into the role, putting on weight and wearing heavy make up to make him look like a pudgy executive. More important is the performance. Whitacre is a smart man but also an easily distracted one, especially when his attention is caught by something that appeals to his vanity. This is caught best in a series of voice-overs, which start out as almost non sequitors.  In one example he’s just informed the FBI about the price fixing, a moment that changes his life and he’s thinking about what a great listener Special Agent Shepard is and how he could see them going fishing. As things get more serious for Whitacre, the voice-overs get more self serving and self-pitying as he blames everyone but himself for his troubles.

Scott Bakula is terrific as Shepard, humanizing the corporate gloss of the FBI agent stereotype to show the frustration of man whose career depends on this increasingly unreliable source. The rest of the cast is wonderful too.

Soderbergh and his screenwriter, Scott Z. Burns used Kurt Eichenwald’s book by the same name as a starting point for this entertaining movie.  My understanding is that the book is very different in  tone. So if you want to have a good time, see the movie. If you want to find out what really happened, read that book.

9

In a weird post-apocalyptic world, a troop of rag dolls fight roving mechanical toys for survival.  It’s Toy Story meets Terminator.  The result is an atmospheric, beautifully animated film that leaves me more excited about first time director Shane Acker’s promise than his actual execution in this case.

9 is based on Acker’s Academy Award nominated short, of the same name, which was 11 minutes long and completely without dialog.  Not only did it snag him a nomination and a Master’s degree in animation from UCLA, it also brought him to the attention of Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov who are listed as producers on the feature length version of the film. Acker’s aesthetic seems to resonate with Burton’s so it’s a good match.

The story centers around 9, voiced by Elijah Wood, who wakes up in this grim world and quickly falls in with a group of similar rag dolls who are hiding in a church from a cat-like mechanical creature. 2, voiced by Martin Landau, the first rag doll 9 meets, is carried away by this creature. 9 mounts a rescue with 5 voiced by John C. Reilly over the objections of 1, voiced by Christopher Plummer. The mission goes wrong and they wind up waking a robot that can manufacture more of the deadly machines that plague them, as well as suck their souls out of their bodies.

There’s nothing to complain about from a technical standpoint. The animation is smooth; the design is beautiful. There is a mood to it that makes if mysterious and foreboding. The problem is that there really isn’t a clear audience for this film. The plot is dark and along with some of the images could be disturbing for younger kids. At the same time, the allegory is a little too obvious for adults and young adults. Also there’s no characterization. The dolls are as bland as the numbers they use for names.

What it all means is that I’m looking forward to Shane Acker’s next film.

Inglourius Basterds

Quentin Tarantino has a simple formula for drama: put some characters with weapons together and see how many ways they can find to kill each other, after they have some great conversations about pop culture first, of course. In Kill Bill the weapons were Samurai swords; in Inglourious Basterds they use machine guns, Bowie knives, baseball bats and burning movie theaters. Yes that’s right. It’s time for another gab and gore fest from Quentin Tarantino, a master of both those things.

Here’s the set up. Lieutenant Aldo Raine, played with a thick Tennessee accent by Brad Pitt, is assigned the task of assembling a commando squad, made up primarily of Jewish Americans, men who would be motivated for the task ahead of them, which is mainly to be dropped into occupied France for the very simple purpose of killing Nazis. Raine sets the head count at 100 per squad member. But you get the impression that’s just a nice round number. He’ll take more.

Most of the previews give the impression that Raine’s mission is the entire movie. Actually there are two other plots that weave in and out of the Basterd’s story. One concerns Shosannah Dreyfus, played by Melanie Laurent, who has primarily worked in French film up til now. Shosannah’s family is betrayed and killed at the beginning of the war. She escapes to Paris and somehow winds up running a movie theater. When a Nazi war hero named Fredrick Zoller takes a liking to her and convinces Goebbels, played by Sylvester Groth to move the premiere of the film based on Zoller’s exploits and starring the young man himself, to her theater, she is presented with an opportunity for revenge.

The third plot line is similar. The British get word of the premiere and recruit cinephile commando Lt. Archie Hicox, played by Michael Fassbender to attend the showing and bomb the theater, killing Goebbels and a lot of other Nazis as well. He is to be helped in this scheme, dubbed Operation Kino by the Basterds and German movie star Bridget von Hammersmark, played by Diane Kruger, who is a double agent.

There are so many cool things happening in this movie that it’s hard to pin down. Like every Tarantino movie, it’s about language, in this case, how hard it is to infiltrate another culture even if you know the language. In one scene Lt. Hicox is exposed as a spy by his accent. Lt. Raine is, of course, completely unable to mask his thick mountain accent and is caught within minutes of his arrival at the premiere. There’s also something about reputations and how they help or hinder someone. In almost every scene, someone asks, “Have you heard of me?” I have to admit that I haven’t quite figured out what it means yet.

Inglourius Basterds is a long film, but you don’t mind. Most of the length is Tarantino’s brilliant dialog, so while it does bog down the plot, you are entertained, and as I’ve said language is a large part of what the film is about, so it fits. Besides this films crackles with energy and most of it comes from the performances. Brad Pitt’s comic acting chops are underrated. His delivery of the classic Tarantino lines will be running through my head for a long time. Melanie Laurent captures the coolness of a French aesthete and combines it with the rage of a vengeful Jewish woman. But stealing every scene he’s in is Christoph Walz, who plays Colonel Hans Landa, a frighteningly smart SS officer, who can be charming but deadly. That performance is worth the price of admission alone.

Of course every Tarantino film is also about movies. Here he is constantly referencing war movies, especially cheesy men on a mission movies like The Dirty Dozen or the Italian film from the seventies with the same name as this one only spelled correctly. In the end it is film itself that completes the mission. I won’t tell you how. But I can say that it doesn’t conform to the accepted history of the war. That may raise an eyebrow or two but in the end it’s all part of the fun. Movie stars have been winning World War II for over fifty years now. It’s only fair that Brad Pitt gets his turn.

District 9

There is a long history in science fiction of using the central conceit of the setup as an extended metaphor. Alien invasion, time travel and all the other major tropes that we’re used to can stand in for whatever theme the author or filmmaker can make work. Neill Blomkamp, the writer and director of District 9 was born in Johannesburg, South Africa and sets his story there. You don’t even need two guesses to get what this first contact story is standing in for.

Twenty years before the story starts, a giant alien ship appeared in the air above Johannesburg. It just hung there like a storm cloud, not communicating, not moving. Eventually, the government got up the nerve to send helicopters up there to cut through the hull. They found thousands of starving aliens, large tentacled beings with tremendous strength. They brought them all down in what was seen as a humanitarian move. It quickly turned sour and over the two intervening decades, the aliens or prawns as they are pejoratively called, because they kind of look like giant shrimp, are confined to a ghetto, where they pick through garbage and steal computer equipment.

After two decades of this the government has decided that it has had enough and is ready to move the prawns into large camps outside of the city limits. To lead the eviction process, they choose a mid level bureaucrat named Wikas Van De Merwe, played by Sharlto Copely. Wikas is a bit of a milquetoast who got the job because he’s married to the daughter of the head of the private company that handles alien affairs and that is secretly trying to unlock the puzzle of the alien weapons, which appear to be keyed to the prawns’ DNA. No humans can use them.

From a technical standpoint, this is a pretty good film. Blomkamp’s background is in computer animation and it shows. The CG aliens are flawlessly integraged into the live action film. The performances, especially Copely’s are pretty good. The camera jumps around in handheld, battlefield documentary type shots. This creates some very intense moments.

But there is something about District 9 that is off putting. It goes beyond the in your face violence and gore and the unremittingly bleak view of human nature. For one thing the film jumps among several styles. There are the handheld sections, where the lens frequently gets splattered with blood that looks like it was made to look like footage for a documentary. A lot of the backstory is given in face to face interviews with “experts” on the situation, most of whom don’t play any other part in the story. And then most of it, especially after the first third of the film is told in traditional narrative style. That jumping around is confusing and it pulls you out of the story. What’s more, for a film that presents itself as so realistic, there are a couple of very unlikely escapes.

District 9 is in the end an interesting failure. It takes more than attitude and gallons of fake blood to make a metaphor work.