10 Great Sci-Fi Movies Where The Aliens Walk Among Us
3. The Brother From Another Planet
If you're an alien who has escaped enslavement and landed in Upper New York Harbour and you look like an African-American, you could find much worse places to hide than Harlem, which is where The Brother winds up in John Sayles's ultra low budget 1984 movie, The Brother From Another Planet. Mistaken for a mute homeless man, The Brother (Joe Morton) finds himself taken in by kindly locals who are intrigued then amazed by his ability to fix all things technical. They attempt to help him integrate into society, even finding him a job at a video arcade. But as he gradually becomes accustomed to his surroundings, he finds himself hunted down by two mysterious men in black - aliens who are out to re-capture escaped slaves and return them to their home planet. The Brother From Another Planet has plenty of humorous moments which subtly play on the intergalactic fish out of water premise, and as you may expect from John Sayles there's an allegorical subtext to be found about the nature of immigrants and how they struggle to integrate into "alien" societies. It all works beautifully thanks to Morton's silent yet expressive performance, and the fact that it was shot on a shoe string budget of $350,000 shows that a lack of money is no obstacle to delivering a solid movie.
