Attack The Block - Review

By Evrim Ersoy May 11, 2011, 12:35 GMT

 Don’t read this review. Seriously, just stop now and get up – leave the house, make your way to the nearest cinema and watch ‘Attack The Block’. Grab some friends if you can – create as much of a crowd as possible. I promise you, nay – I swear to you that you will not regret it.

 
 Let me be honest – I wasn’t really looking forward to ‘Attack The Block’ – although I’ve been a fan of Joe Cornish and all the madcap projects he has done ; there was a nagging feeling in me that he would not be able to pull this off.  The trailer did not help either. I felt the film might be presenting the idea of an estate which was as far removed from reality as possible – with caricature characters just there for the sneering. I was sure I knew exactly how the entire thing would play.

 Oh boy – was I wrong, was I very wrong.

 ‘Attack The Block’ is the story of an alien invasion on a South London estate.  The heroes of the film are a gang of teenagers – their first appearance in the film is mugging the nurse Sam (played by Jodie Whittaker).  At first it’s almost impossible to feel anything for this bunch of loud-mouth yobs but the film manages to turn them into something resembling anti-heroes. In the true tradition of brilliant popcorn cinema, the film makes us care about the fate of each one of these characters.

 ‘Attack The Block’ also turns out to be darker than expected – the body count is unusually high for what is being called as comedy-adventure. There’s a true sense of danger – the aliens are violent and unpredictable – they are as much of a force to be reckoned as any sci-fi danger we’ve seen on the silver screen in the past 30 years. Add to this the fact that they look exactly like the alien depicted on the front cover of the 80’s computer game ‘Alien Breed’ and there appears almost no reason to admire them as the enemy.

 One of the most unusual surprises about the film is the direction by Joe Cornish. There is no fancy editing or flashy techniques on display here, ‘Attack The Block’ firmly belongs amongst 80’s classics such as ‘The Goonies’ or ‘Stand By Me’. Mr. Cornish uses visual clues and cues to lay the groundwork for the audience and uses that groundwork expertly once the action kicks in. His camera angles and pans are the kind we’ve almost forgotten, allowing the actors, the scenery and the action to speak for themselves as opposed to trying to introduce a false sense of speed, an unnecessary sense of urgency to the proceedings.

 The acting in the film is uniformly good – every member of the gang gives a toned down but admirable performance and they are ably supported by some good characters actors: perhaps the most over-the-top performance of the film comes from Nick Frost who seems to belong perhaps in a different movie altogether but this is only a minor problem with what is essentially an exceptional film.

 ‘Attack The Block’ is proof that you can still make a rousing adventure film without resorting to modern trickery – it’s an intelligent and fun film which will appeal right across the board. As the film finished I tried to remember the last time I had so much fun at a mainstream screening and no other film really popped up.

A great achievement for all involved and a must-see title.