ATTACK THE BLOCK
Written & Directed by Joe Cornish
Produced by Nira Park & James Wilson
Released by Screen Gems
UK. 89 min. Rated R
With Jodie Whitaker, John Boyega, Alex Esmail, Luke Treadaway, Simon Howard & Nick Frost
 

Sometimes a filmmaker may need a film or two to really hit his/her stride, but Joe Cornish surprises with his debut feature. He already seems fully formed and sophisticated as a director. He know what’s funny, but also that his story needs edginess, action, some elements of horror to go with the science-fiction premise, and even a touch of neo-realism. It’s like The Warriors crossed with this summer’s Super 8.

In fact, this is the movie I really wanted out of that last film, in which the humor and camaraderie is contrasted with the drama of an alien presence on Earth, but Super 8 ultimately loses focus. Here, Cornish starts off with something riskier: a group of kids (thugs possibly right out of last year’s Harry Brown) mugging a young woman (Jodie Whitaker) just as a meteor with a nasty-toothed alien onboard hits the ground. The no-nonsense gang leader and teenage criminal, 15-year-old Moses (newcomer John Boyega), kills the creature, but then more meteors with even nastier looking aliens out for revenge attack his housing project.

Attack the Block doesn’t beat around the bush: these kids are rough and nasty, and they speak the kind of British slang you may need subtitles for. How does Cornish make us identify with or feel sympathy for these young punks? Simple: by putting them through absolute hell as dozens of these ultra-violent creatures go after the boys and citizens of the block one by one. The movie turns into a highly-charged action movie where, for better or worse, we’re with these kids through the long haul. The action is tight and fast paced, but always the audience knows what’s going on.

I laughed often during the film (and certainly the audience at a rowdy preview screening got into it too). The humor is smart and hip, knowing of the genre, and the film features such wonderful actors as Nick Frost, here in a small role as a spacey weed dealer with the most secure apartment in the complex for his crop. (Both Cornish and executive producer Edgar Wright come out of the school of British TV comedy.)

This is one of those special effects movies that dazzles, unlike, again, Super 8, because it understands how to use monsters to good use. The aliens are like fuzzy bear-wolf beings without eyes, and they have gigantic jaws and mouths full of sharp green teeth. Sometimes all one can see are the teeth. Other times the full bodies are outlined, but Cornish wisely only reveals so much of their bodies in certain moments, and the movie’s all the more frightening. The creatures were probably made on the cheap, given that this is a fairly low-budget production that only got good distribution after fantastic raves at festivals. Yet I never stopped believing how dangerous a threat they were for the characters, and that’s something rare in most horror movies, much less in a horror/sci-fi/comedy-action hybrid like this. Jack Gattanella
July 29, 2011