If children really are our future, then aren't we totally fucked?
dir: Joe Cornish
Did you ever wonder what all those British youthful scumbags were doing before they started rioting through the streets of London?
Apparently, they were saving us from the alien scum of the universe.
Someone had the idea recently of ‘what if aliens invaded the Wild, Wild West?’ That movie was made, and was known as Cowboys and Aliens. Someone else had the idea ‘what if aliens invaded people’s arses?’ And that masterpiece was made. It was called Dreamcatcher. And now some dickhead thought to himself or herself ‘what if aliens invaded a British public housing estate?’
And lo and behold, Attack the Block was made.
It’s impossible to set a flick in or around a council estate, or housing commission flats, or the projects, or the Parisian banlieu or any form of public housing, without much of the underlying story being about the social commentary opportunities the location throws up. Having said that, this flick uses it as an opportunity to comment more on the actions of the protagonists, who live in these places, rather than the supposed ethics of the people or the system that places them there.
What this really means for us, the viewers, is that our protagonists, unless we share extended sympathies with them out of experience or through, what’s that term again, oh yeah, liberal guilt, is that our protagonists are fucking brats we ourselves wish we could punch in the face, let along watch an alien rip their throat out. The film has to, you’d think, if it matters to you, manage and manage well the transition from hating them to actually caring if they survive or not.
It’s a tough transition, but I think the flick manages it, somewhat, which I guess even makes it somewhat transgressive as well. Perhaps that’s too far. I certainly didn’t care if they lived or died, but I still wondered what would happen, which at least speaks to some semblance of interest.
As fireworks explode (is it Guy Fawke's Night, perhaps?) over the night skies of Lambeth, which is in South London, or Saa-ouf Lah-dahn if you get their accents, a young nurse (Jodie Whittaker) walks home. She is mugged by a bunch of teenage thugs, lead by key scumbag Moses (John Boyega), who threatens her with a knife. She runs off, as these fuckers go through all her stuff. The littlest fucker goes through her wallet, and sees her nurse’s ID.
COMMENCE SOCIAL COMMENTARY: He criticises their leader, once he realises their victim was a nurse.
“Nurses don’t get paid shit. Why you be attackin’ poor people?”
END SOCIAL COMMENTARY: They laugh, and go on their merry, hoodie-wearing, knife-wielding way.
But hark! Something crashes into a car, half destroying it. Moses thinks he can score some more unearned bounty, and starts scavenging. Some creature attacks him. He and his fuckhead mates track the poor creature down and kill it by pummelling the shit out of it in their typically pack mentality – cowardly fashion.
So many signifiers… They parade the corpse of the creature around their block, which is their estate, being Wyndham Tower in Clayton Estate, thinking and acting like they’d just beaten to death some poor pensioner (i.e. very proud). They take the alien up to their local drug dealer, hoping to either stash it, get money for it, or something equally stupid, when they realise that there are more aliens attacking their block.
And thus the lads have to REPREZENT!
This is not a big budget film, so don’t expect the aliens to look like a hundred million dollars. Apart from the initial puppet-like one, the more aggressive monsters are all black, somewhat furry-ish, with big blue fluorescent teeth. It mostly has the story structure and timing beats of a horror flick, but it falls into the nebulous cross-genre pile of flicks that are action flicks, sci-fi flicks and / or comedies.
As such, it’s pretty well done. It feels anarchic and propulsive, and builds up a fair head of steam as it moves along. It’s not a flick that gets bogged down in exposition or backstory, but it does reveal enough of the lives of some of its protagonists so as to make them more than just the next in line to die.
Usually, with a flick where kids are in danger (like Super 8, perhaps) from an alien menace, you’d accuse it of being a fairly callous, manipulative attempt at garnering controversy or at least moving an audience to care that little bit more. With these little streetwise mouthy fuckers, let’s just say the peril of their endangered lives doesn’t exactly get you clutching your pearls.
They speak in their vernacular with enough of the Jamaican patois to make it sound like they is all takin’ the piss, bruv. In short, most of them sound like Ali G, aight? But I’m going to assume, given the age of some of these shits, that it’s their own dialect, and not a put on. And, as such, we have an even better and expansive view into the lives and times of the gobshites who recently caused billions of pounds worth of damage and stole as much as they could carry during the recent riots.
I didn’t have too much difficulty understanding them, but I’m guessing it’s because I played so much Grand Theft Auto 4, and spent an inordinate amount of time trying to understand what the character called Little Jacob was trying to say, and being amazed by how mangled a language can be in the right hands or larynx.
So when characters were saying ‘Whagwan?’ to each other, I at least has something of a clue as to what they were saying.
Of course the circumstances will throw the victim from the beginning, and her attackers into a position whereby they have to either let each other die or work together to stay alive. As I said, it’s not a completely radical script that they’re working with, and they chug along with it fairly well.
Jodie Whittaker, who I mostly remember for the amazing role she played in a film called Venus, where she tried to revive a comatose Peter O’ Toole by showing him her breasts, actually does pretty well in a tough part. She helps ground the flick, because she’s probably the only person in the story who’s decent and doesn’t deserve to die violently.
I’m just kidding, none of them deserve to die violently. Some of them could do with a crippling beating, though. She holds her own against these hoodlums, helps them out and even earns their respect.
Though I would argue that their respect is an inherently worthless thing. Chief among the hoods is Moses, who does a really good job with the laconic posturing thing. He is the one who tries to transition from ruthless thug to hero. Though they’re all dumber than a big box of dumb rocks, he at least has presence. All that the other thugs have got is humour, and they get some pretty funny lines off, I have to admit.
As if the stakes weren’t high enough, the local drug kingpin also goes after the young thugs, and he contributes almost nothing to the flick apart from some awful dental work and a difficult hairstyle. High Hat or whatever he was called brought nothing to the table, though, like everyone I guess, his death was not lamented by me. On the fucking contrary.
The ending is absurd, seeing as it seems to lift an ending that’s part Bond film (with a fortunately-placed Union Jack flag) and part Die Hard, but then again the whole fucking film is absurd. Absurd and enjoyable. Absurdly enjoyable.
I enjoyed it. It’s strange in some ways, and it’s asking a bit much to get us to care about characters who would just as soon stab us or kick in the windows of our cars, but I at least wasn’t disappointed by their childish antics and criminal ways in facing an intergalactically nasty (and conveniently stupid) menace.
I was far from disappointed. I was amused and entertained by this flick. And that’s more than I can say about most of the flicks that make their way onto my eyeballs.
7 times I don’t know which species is nastier: South Londoners or voracious aliens out of 10
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“That's an alien bruv, believe it.” – it’s not his fault it looks like something you could win at a carnival – Attack the Block.
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