My Favourite Movies: Attack The Block (2011)

I can’t remember how I heard about this. I don’t think I saw it at the cinema so it must have been word of mouth and then a cheap DVD pick-up. Produced by the same people who brought us Shaun of the Dead this was, I think, much better, more dramatic and honestly funnier.

It all starts with a mugging. Nurse Sam (played in excellent fashion by Jodie Whittaker) is on her way home from work when she come across a teenage gang led by 15 year old Moses (brilliantly portrayed by newcomer John Boyega). Just as things start getting very tense indeed something crashes into a nearby parked car and Sam takes the opportunity to escape. When the gang investigate the explosion they find a strange creature in the wreckage and chase it across the housing estate. Taking it back to their tower block on a run-down London estate they have no idea that the alien is leaving an invisible trail for others of its species to follow but it soon becomes apparent that the gang need to step-up and grow-up quickly if any of them want to get out of this situation alive. But it seems that the aliens, fierce as they no doubt are, have picked to wrong place to launch an invasion. In the contest between Inner City and Outer Space the City has a definite edge.

This is one of those off the wall films that gets made from time to time that turns out to be something rather special. Made on a shoe string with largely unknown actors – only Jodie Whittaker and Nick Frost really had any kind of previous form - this almost harked back to the urban horror/sci-fi movies of the 1950’s where, largely unknown to anyone around them, a bunch of previously no-hope kids effectively save the world using their street smarts and whatever weapons come to hand. Inevitably from a project including Nick Frost there’s a lot of offbeat and rather dark humour and some rather telling comments about the conditions of the inner city and how teenage boys in particular are viewed by the public and by the police. Boyaga, aged 19 at the time and with only a few episodes of TV to his credit, gives a marvellously nuanced performance as a teenager on the cusp of becoming involved in the drug world against his will and better judgement. Much is left unsaid about his upbringing but none of it looks particularly positive. Yet this boy, initially the focus of hate and fear by the other central figure the nurse Sam, becomes the hero of the piece putting his own life in danger to save others without any thought of recognition or respect. He does it because it’s the right thing to do and no one else is available for the job. The decision to save the world is really that simple and that complicated. The rest of the gang, basically his friends from the Block, wisecrack their way through the events dispatching monsters between smoking the odd reefer and trying to chat up the local girls who are less than impressed that they have mugged a fellow resident. There are some great lines, laugh out loud moments and, surprisingly for such an often funny film, some real moments of tension as well as a fair bit of blood (the lift scene in particular is very bloody). Taken for what it is, a low budget British B movie with a largely untried cast, this is highly entertaining, laugh out loud funny film with its fair share of jumpy moments too. If you can get to watch it I’d definitely give it a try.