Attack The Block: Attacking The Screen
By Thanzila Khatun
Attack the Block is the directorial debut of Joe Cornish (of BBC6 Music’s Adam and Joe Show fame) and revolves around a stereotypical gang of teenage boys who are faced with a sudden alien invasion on their council estate in South London.
I feel I should mention before you start reading the following (assuming anyone actually reads this, I might’ve just doomed myself already) that after having met the cast and director of Attack the Block, I was slightly concerned that I would find it difficult to be unbiased in my examination of the film due to their charm, humour and overall loveliness. However, whichever way I look at it, there is no denying that Attack the Block is a well made and hilarious film which does justice to the sci-fi genre without cheapening it. On first looking at the trailer, though funny, there was the danger that the film could become a cheesy attempt from a middle class perspective at portraying stereotypical youths thrown into a ‘fish-out-of-water’ situation, and then documenting their poor attempts at handling that situation, which would inevitably warrant few, if any, laughs. Thankfully, this is not one such film.
What we have in Attack the Block is a film which takes on a subject which has been done to death in countless movies before; the alien invasion. All too easily could this film have become clichéd, unoriginal and copycat if an alien invasion was all that the story had going for it. However, Cornish takes us away from the expected and into a fully relatable and recognisable world, and the unlikeliest of places for an invasion, a South London estate with a gang of rough youths as the protagonists. He infuses into the storyline sub-plots about gang culture, drug culture, the characters’ family lives and estate territorialism. The end result is a hilarious, at oft times genuinely frightening but somewhat touching picture in which each character is tested in a completely absurd situation.
What struck me as brilliant was Cornish’s skill in forging a hilarious scene which has both the characters and audience laughing in unison (and make no mistake, these were belly laughs) only to shatter the illusion by promptly following with a moment of sudden fright. This ability to utilise comedy to relax the audience, only to unhinge them a second later by unleashing a moment of unexpected terror, revealed to me his in-depth and intimate knowledge of the horror genre. Indeed Cornish cites horror and sci-fi films of the 1980s as his influences when making this film (Alien and Aliens are good examples of this). In particular, his usage of gore was delivered in correct measure so as not to drown the film in it, but enough to disgust the audience.
Furthermore, his depiction of the characters was surprisingly accurate, from their behaviour and actions to their language and slang, the comedic effect of which was brilliant. At one point I did start to think the slang usage was over excessive as it was quite unrelenting, especially because most of it was disrespectful, and I thought, ‘surely South London kids don’t speak like this all the time, I can’t stand it’. However, proving that all aspects of this film had been thought out (I should think so, since it’s been 10 years in the making) it became obvious this was a deliberate attempt to make the characters seem unappealing at the start, only for them to win us over by the end.
I must admit however, that as the film concluded, I was unsure as to how exactly I should feel about the characters. Yes, their experiences handling the enemy aggressors seemed to have sobered them enough to forge a convivial relationship with the very woman they mugged at the start of the firm, but the film ended with a slight suggestion that once all the excitement and transitory glamour associated with heroism died down, the kids would be right back to where they started; living on an estate, with not much going for them.
Despite this uncertainty, Joe Cornish succeeded in producing a hugely enjoyable and action packed film (slow motion scene included), doing the sci-fi comedy genre justice in the process. He took on a risk by tackling this genre specifically, knowing that it would be likely his film would be immediately compared to the hugely popular Shaun of the Dead (2004) directed by his good friend Edgar Wright. However, he can be content in the knowledge that Attack the Block, with its completely differing style and tone, particularly for a debut, stands up as a great film in its own right.
Thanzila Khatun is a King’s College London graduate in English Language and Literature. She is the Sub-editor for Culture at The Platform.
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