POPULATION ZERO is a mockumentary or fake documentary the strongest aspect of which is an intelligent plot based on real-life issues.
A man kills three young hikers in Yellowstone National Park, then immediately turns himself in and confesses, but offers no motive. His trial fails because, it turns out, there is a legal loophole in the US constitution which effectively permits crimes to be committed in this area due to the fact that it has population zero. Five years later, a documentarian retraces the murders and the events that led to them, and comes across an unexpected discovery.
While the murders are fictional, the issue with the legal loophole is a real-life legal problem which was discovered by a law professor. Interestingly, a novel had been written years before with substantial similarities to this set-up based on that loophole. It is called "Free Fire", and it concerns an attorney who kills four hikers in the same area in Yellowstone National Park and also immediately turns himself in and confesses, offering no motive.
The author of "Free Fire", CJ Box, has publicly accused this documentary of plagiarism. The accusation could be true, but I believe there is room for doubt. For one thing, despite the nearly identical premise, there are some differences in each case between the killer, his victims, his pursuer and, most importantly, his motives. For another, after the law professor published his article on the loophole, it is conceivable that multiple people could have independently thought of a similar fictional murder plot that would exploit it. Most importantly, Box himself seems to have admitted that the alleged plagiarism did not extend to verbatim passages from his book.
Unfortunately, people steal ideas from each other all the time. I don't know whether that is the case here, but I decided to give the film-makers the benefit of the doubt.
With that out of the way, I found the plot to be well-constructed, and the connection to fracking, another real-life problem, both completely unanticipated and incorporated in a very natural way. The characterization of the antagonist in this had shades of "John Doe" in SE7EN (1995). There is a reference by the director, who plays himself, to a previous actual documentary he had made on environmental pollution, and I found this mixing of reality and fiction amusing, as it seems to be sort of the converse of the "Bateson's Belfry" hoax by Michael Crichton in THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY (1978).
The pace is rather slow, but the plot offers enough twists along the way that it keeps interest. As far as mockumentaries are concerned, I would rate it as one of the best, so fans of the genre may wish to add it to their watchlist, perhaps followed by a reading of "Free Fire".
