This review was penned by André-Pierre du Plessis.

Director: Neill Blomkamp
Running time: 120 minutes
André-Pierre du Plessis

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“There are two reasons why you need to see it,” my American friend says. “One – you’re South African and two – you’re in it!”

Since moving to New York a year ago I’ve been stopped several times by people telling me that I look like Matt Damon. Matt Damon? Are you on crack? But in the city that never sleeps, little sleep makes anybody look like the Hollywood actor you came on holiday to New York for, even though that actor lives in Hollywood. But you got a D- for geography at primêre skool and to you Burbank and Brooklyn is the same place which concluded I should be, must be, the star of Elysium: Matt Damon.

Elysium is only Neill Blomkamp’s second feature movie after his incredibly successful District 9. In South Africa we don’t realise how successful District 9 was until you become friends with teenage American boys, which I did (don’t ask me why). Discovering that I’m from South Africa, I was referred to as The Prawn and when spotted on street they would shout, “You fooking prawn” because “fokken” is not a word they can pronounce. Don’t get me wrong; they weren’t hurling insults at me. They said “fooking prawn” in the same way you would shout “hey bru” to a buddy you surf with or call your best friend that you grew up with and whose parents are way better off that yours “The Darky”. It’s a loving, caring, “we understand your background” label of sorts. But more than that District 9 seems to have been a really big deal among that treasured 16 to 25 year-olds that made MTV, VICE and Old Spice some of the most coveted media commodities at some point. Just unlike the billions marketers spend annually to infiltrate the subconscious of millennials, Wikus van der Merwe (played by Sharlto Copley in District 9) did it without trying that hard. And even Copley has received the “loving” prawn-calling: writing on Reddit recently he said a woman one stopped him on the street, grabbed his arm and said “Call me a fokken prawn”. Sexy.

This year Copley returns not as a prawn but as Agent Kruger to become this years best big screen villain. The movie is set in the year 2154 but pretty much portrays life in South Africa today; the only difference being that those currently living in Clifton, Illovo and Parktown North now inhabit a spaceship. The ADT of this spaceship is Jodi Foster who doesn’t take kak from people trying to jump the fence. She’s ADT on steroids and has hired Copley to keep out illegal aliens who try to leave earth for a chance at a better life (there’s incredible health benefits on this spaceship). Because healthcare plays an important role in this movie, Americans immediately think Elysium supports Obamacare. “Republicans won’t like this movie,” an American tells me after leaving the movie. But that’s not the point because the movie is not about America. It is about Egypt and Libia and South America and South Africa and everywhere else where healthcare is still such an illusion for millions and not something fought over for political gain.

Although the movie starts off being about Damon and the prerequisite love interest to maintain the ingredients of a summer blockbuster (we’re in the northern hemisphere here, for those with the D- in aardrykskunde), it turns to be more about Copley, I think. When Foster calls him to do some emergency ADT work, he calls upon two fellow South Africans to kill Damon and his girl. Brandon Auret (whose character Leon du Plessis was the only reason I watched Isidingo) and another South African-born actor Josh Blacker are the two mercenaries who would probably remind any Yankee fresh from Iraq of those Recces hired by the US Military to shoot-and-kill. Flying in a spaceship with a proudly South African flag and what looks like either a klipspringer or some malformed springbok, they call each other “boet”, “boytjie”, say “kak” a lot and – the highlight of the entire movie – sing “Jan Pierewiet”. Yes, Jan Pierewiet Staan Stil. Asked on Reddit what Copley’s favourite part from filming Elysium was he said, “Being able to sing an Afrikaans nursery rhyme in a Hollywood film”.

So really this movie has everything you’ll ever want in a movie: lost of Afrikaans jokes, jokes about bad English accents only South Africans can appreciate, an angry powerful lesbian, Bugatti spaceships, blood, Jan Pierewiet and happy South African kids running through a veld at the end of the movie. Go see it.

Check out Andre’s profile on Vimeo, HERE.