Attack the Block

[beccaelizabeth]

I saw this was on TV tonight and then remembered I'd bought it on DVD.

The back of the box describes this as "A sci-fi, horror, action, comedy with an old school flavour, it's inner city versus outer space."

Somehow it does indeed manage to be all that.

The monsters are proper scary. In ways that are LOL right up until they're nasty. Glow in the dark teeth and ultra black fur, "So black you can't even see it, blacker than my cousin."

... yeah, the main speaking parts, not white people.

There are a few white people. We start from the point of view of a young white woman who gets mugged on the way home, then follow the boys that mugged her, only one of them white. There's also a set of girl characters kind of matching the guy gang, who hang out together and the guys turn up in front of them and try and show off, then try and hide at their place. The girls don't need saving, they grab weapons and save themselves. Said weapons including a broken lamp used cattle prod style and an ice skate, blade first. Nasty. Then they tell the guys to get out and take their trouble with them, which seems pretty reasonable as far as it goes.

There's a lot of violence, action, horror stuff. Black guy does not die first. I think that was the police. Messily. And that explains why it's a bunch of teenagers dealing with the alien invasion, because the police already got killed and the next lot of police blame the kids for it.

The setting is a single tower block, the characters almost all live there, except for one university student who is there to buy weed. He's such a tosser, it's hilarious. He provides the science bit, the justification for why the aliens are doing what they do, but he's also much LOL where they're getting ready to do heroics and he's all "I'd go if I wasn't so profoundly stoned." So it remains all down to the guys we met first, the gang.

Under the horror and the improvised weapons and all that the film pulls a very good trick. You start out with a visual on this gang, and they're all standing together blocking the pavement, hoodies up, scarves over their faces, on bicycles where the nurse woman is walking, and one of them has a knife. They're the big scary, urban edition. But the film goes along, and the layers get peeled back both literally in terms of clothes and doors and metaphorically with information, until we're right in their point of view and their actions all film make sense. In their world, the police are a threat, the neighbours are a threat or at best lock their doors to them, the local drug dealers are either the kind of helpful that wants £300 off them in the near future or they're a guns blazing threat, and this tiny little gang are screwed every which way. And then you find out how old they are. And by the end of the film who the bad guys are is... if not flipped, then certainly spread around considerable. So like all the reviews say, social commentary, by the end not subtle. But very nicely done. It doesn't have a creaky preachy layer, it rolls on naturally alongside the horror and action stuff and lets the audience mostly add it up for themselves.

Well written, well acted, funny where it means to be and scary when it means to be and leaving you with that 'hang on' feeling where the two crunch but only when it means to. Ethnically diverse cast, mostly focusing on men but with probably nearly equal numbers of women. Good film.

Comments

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

I have that on DVD somewhere. I need to rewatch it.