District 9

Directed by: Neill Blomkamp
Starring: Jason Cope, Sharlto Copley
Rating: R

Sharlto Copley stars in District 9. (Courtesy photo)

While Hollywood grows more wary of trying anything that isn’t safe, producer Peter Jackson and director Neill Blomkamp have reminded everyone just how rewarding dangerous can be. The first half of District 9 is sci-fi cinéma vérité, a photojournalism-style look at the alien overpopulation problem in Johannesburg, South Africa.

It’s been 20 years since the huge mother ship came to a stop over the city, and the alien drones have been stuck here, filling up the District 9 slums ever since. We follow Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley), a giddy, over-his-head administrator put in charge of transferring the 1.8 million “prawns” (they look like giant shrimp) from their slums to a huge tent camp 200 miles out of the city. It’s a brutal, cold-blooded operation, since these aliens are as violent as they are gullible and scared.

The second half of District 9 devolves into a more standard sci-fi actioner, with Wikus being forced to join up with an intelligent prawn (Jason Cope) in an effort to get him back to the mother ship. Strangely, in this case the familiarity is welcome. For a while, District 9, in spite of some jet-black humor on the part of Blomkamp, is almost too rough to stay with. Only thanks to our fascination with Blomkamp’s uncompromising vision and the knockout performance of newcomer Copley do we survive to the second half. And don’t misunderstand: this more familiar action spectacle is five times as creative and intense as the five-times-more-expensive Transformers.

District 9 is definitely rated R: it’s far too gruesome for the faint of heart. Blomkamp pushes things past the point of safety, but in the end he gives us what we want and then some. It’s not quite a masterpiece—there are some really annoying plot turns throughout, and some particularly bad dialogue in the final act. But District 9 is a tally of daring moves Hollywood would never normally allow. It’s the most innovative, exciting thriller to come along in some time.
 

In the Loop

Directed by: Armando Iannucci
Starring: Chris Addison, Peter Capaldi, Anna Chlumsky Tom Hollander, David Rasche, Mimi Kennedy
Rating: R

Tom Hollander stars as a cabinet minister in In the Loop. (Courtesy photo)

Even better than District 9, though on a smaller scale, is In the Loop. (Is it just me, or has 2009 seen an abnormal number of poorly named films?) In the Loop follows—again in mock-photojournalism style—the political haranguing on both sides of the Atlantic leading up to the 2002 decision to invade Iraq. A feature-length expansion of the British series The Thick of It, the film includes much of the original cast from the series, along with writers Simon Blackwell and Jesse Armstrong and director Armando Iannucci. Political comedies almost never work, but In the Loop is so smart and so acid-tongued, the subject matter is almost secondary. In fact, the only knock is that it barely feels big enough for theaters. As good as it is, you won’t lose anything by waiting to see it on DVD. If anything, you’ll be able to rewind and try to understand all of the colorful swears bandied about. What is it about actors from the Isles that their cussing sounds like poetry?

When insignificant cabinet minister Simon Foster (Tom Hollander—Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Dead Man’s Chest) accidentally implies an anti-war stance on the part of the British government, both sides of the Atlantic want to use him for their purposes. Soon Foster is in a tug-of-war between lean, watery-eyed bully Malcom Tucker (Peter Capaldi—Torchwood) on the British side and two competing senators (David Rasche and Mimi Kennedy) on the American side. When Foster and his new image advisor Toby Wright (Chris Addison) are sent to the United States to meet up with Kennedy’s Senator Karen Clark, things get more out of hand.

The cast is huge and marvelous, but the standouts are Kennedy (Dharma and Greg), Hollander, and especially Capaldi. Also welcome is Anna Chlumsky, the My Girl star who took most of her teen years off from film. She’s all grown up and a once more a star-in-the-making as Kennedy’s harried aide.

As absurd as the stone-faced proceedings get, if you told me this script was actually a transcript of real political exchanges, I wouldn’t doubt it for a second. It’s hands-down the best screenplay I’ve seen this year. In a fair world, In the Loop would be a Best Picture frontrunner with multiple acting nominations. Ultimately it’s too sharp, offbeat, and British to hit it big in the U.S. If you can handle a movie with more swearing than a David Mamet play, in which you enjoy everyone but root for no one, seek out In the Loop.

Alex Manugian lives in Sherman Oaks, Calif. He grew up in Groton and has reviewed movies for Harvard readers for many years.