DVD Pick: Duplicity

Julia Roberts and Clive Owen engage in Trouble in Paradise style comic one-upmanship in this fun thriller about two romantically entangled rival spies working a long con. The targets in question are two dueling drug companies fronted by explosive CEOs Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti. The film comes from writer/director Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton) who has a good time playing with his spy cinema expertise (Gilroy penned the Bourne trilogy) by setting his high end protagonists on corporate wild goose chases, including a subplot about a potential frozen pizza scam. It's big stakes in surprisingly mundane surroundings and the contrast, combined with Roberts and Owen in witty banter mode, make this an enjoyable film trifle.

District 9

One of the Summer’s best conceived thrillers becomes one of its most gratingly loud blockbusters in less than 100 minutes. District 9 falls from sharp, observant satire into terrain covered more commonly in Transformers in its disturbing, weird, and blood-lusty third act descent. It’s still fun. Probably even the best action flick of the Summer. It just lacks so much of the sophistication one expects from its winning and subtle beginning.

The film opens with the basic history of an alternate contemporary Earth which has made contact with an alien life form stranded in Johannesburg due to a spaceship malfunction. The government decides to ghettoize the alien life (given the derogatory slang name “prawns”) in a secluded sector named District 9. The film picks up 20 years later when a private corporation, MNU, has elected average chump Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) as head of its alien affairs branch and defacto leader of the alien containment operation. To alleviate stress on the locals, MNU has set up a new camp in greater isolation and is embarking upon a “relocation” operation. The plan essentially calls for the involuntary relocation of the aliens by any means necessary and illuminates the deep abuses of the company and the illegality of its treatment of the “prawns.” The situation, handled by director Neill Blomkamp with the stoic straight-ahead approach with which one would address any political topic, is fascinating to watch. It is depicted with a clever flair for the reality an invasion would create. The dynamic has character, complexity, and something to say about the way governments handle crises and the way people handle newness and “the other.”

From here the scenario morphs, rather wildly, into a sci-fi spectacle complete with laser beams, an absurd subplot about cannibalistic Nigerian weapon traders, and a strange propensity for making people’s heads explode and splat against the camera (because it’s a “documentary”). There are certainly worse action films in the world and the special effects here are uniformly ingenious and realistic. But anyone hoping the promise of the film’s first act would be delivered upon and we would get a truly incisive and visionary tale of sci-fi reality will be sorely disappointed. Savor the intrigue and nuance of the film’s opening salvo. It will never reach such heights again. The film becomes less about intergalactic diplomacy and instead focuses on who can shoot whom first and with the biggest gun.

District 9 also suffers from a stylistic quirk that need be addressed. It’s mock doc schema is made weirdly complex by the elaborate overlay of “present day” interviews (falling after the events of the film), “found footage” from security cameras and other natural sources, and standard 35 mm Hollywood camera work which captures things like the alien’s “secret plan” that could not be conceivably documented by any camera, as it is, after all, a secret. How this all comes together to be any sort of plausible documentary form is forgivable yet slightly jarring. Reconciling the omniscient director’s camera with all the rather forcible suggestions of “realness” proves distracting, but gives the desired sense of time and place.

Blomkamp has made an undeniably original film with plenty of appeal and truly exciting ideas. Unfortunately, an awful lot of those ideas get lost in the shuffle as the film switches from sophisticated mock doc about an emerging crisis to juvenile action romp in almost no time at all. Maybe some can better embrace the shift and appreciate the film for both its smarts and its splat. I found the transition lacking. The film is a solid thriller worth seeing but it does not live up to its own standards.

Grade: B

R.I.P. John Hughes