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Turf wars get extraterrestrialized in Writer/Director Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block. The film is rich in concrete jungle atmosphere and gritty laughs making its urban dynamics so grossly enjoyable. Energetic in its attempts to recapture the spirit of the 1980’s low-budget horror/comedy genre, the modern tweakings done to its Critters meets Stand By Me vibe is a welcome celebration of gore and comedy and effects that are real and practical and never, blatantly CGI. It’s another homerun from the Edgar Wright Camp.
After mugging their neighbor Sam (Jodie Auckland Whittaker) while on her way home from work, a gang of street thugs, led by Moses (John Boyega), chase down and kill a funny-looking creature on Bonfire Night in South London. Fascinated by their kill, the boys - Pest, Dennis, Jerome, Biggz and Moses – decide to take it back to their block where Ron (Nick Frost) their resident drug dealer because he is an expert in watching National Geographic documentaries.
Little do they know that the dead creature is an alien and their little murder has just set off a war between wolf-like aliens and human beings. And danger follows the boys…not just from the aliens. They can't seem to shake Sam or a pesky duo of boys kicking it wannabe gangsta-style and a hardcore gangster pissed by their continued destruction of his property. If it helps imagine Super 8 as a comedy and you’ll see where the film is headed. Tense and full of edge-of-you-seat thrills and belly-shaking laughs, Attack the Block, with its foul-mouthed charm, makes for one hell of a debut from Cornish.
While it isn’t aiming for nostalgia, the film does invite comparisons. Yet, it’s ingenious in that Attack the Block isn’t playing it safe as a just another irreverent send-off of particular genre’s like zombie films in Shaun of the Dead and buddy cop films in Hot Fuzz (both genius examples of parody, by the way). No, Attack the Block has an effervescent earnestness that challenges the geeky gonzo moments of science fiction and laugh out-loud hysterics. The gore is unrelenting (heads pop off) and so is this picture’s heart; unbalanced and gloriously frenzied at times.
Cornish doesn’t provide a heart-wrenching reason for the boys drug use and mugging habits. Only one is needed: they are still learning in a world in which they have nothing. Hell, they are nothing. And once they kill the first space creature, they get all the attention they’ll ever want. Bad boys grow up. this is where the heart of the picture comes into play, but don’t let me spend too much time on the heart.
You want the blood. I know you do. I do, too. Attack the Block delivers blood and guts and practical effects in an old-school and fairly eloquent manner. It takes chances with its creature designs and gives the audience something they can see and feel: practical special effects. Imagine that. No CGI. At all. The creature costumes are hairy and on all fours and menacing calculated in form and function.
Ranking up there with incredible debuts like Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, Neil Blomkamp's District 9 and Jason Eisener’s Hobo with a Shotgun, Attack the Block is a smartly-paced play on and merging of genres we simply don’t see of feel all that often anymore.
MPAA Rating: R for creature violence, drug content and pervasive language.
