Film Review | Attack The Block (2011)

The comparisons between director Joe Cornish's Attack The Block and Wright and Pegg's modern classic Shaun Of The Dead are possibly an overly simplistic way of evaluating the more recent film. Both are the major feature directorial debut of a name primarily made in TV comedy, both blend action, sci fi, horror and comedy genres, and both transport these genres to unlikely locations from domestic Britain. Edgar Wright (SOTD co-writer and director) serves as executive producer of ATB. Oh, and both have Nick Frost in them. But, despite the two fims' similarities, it's not fair to simply rate Cornish's film on the "Shaun-ometer".

Attack The Block follows the exploits of a gang of teenagers living in a run-down council estate in London. After mugging nurse Sam (Jodie Whittaker), the group encounter an alien entity which gang leader Moses (John Boyega) quickly decides to kill after it wounds his face. However, life on the estate quickly becomes more and more dangerous as larger and fiercer aliens soon arrive.

In many ways, Cornish doesn't make life easy for himself in making ATB a success. Within the first five minutes of the film, the group that we follow are set up as violent criminals; they rob a young woman at knifepoint, and their first instinct upon discovering what they quickly realise is an alien lifeform is to kill it, seemingly to teach it a lesson and just because it will entertain them for a while. The gang also associate with local drug dealer Ron (Frost) and his gangster boss Hi-Hatz (Jumayn Hunter). This does make the group difficult to root for once under siege from the alien threat, but also provides intrigue as to how, if at all, the gang members can redeem themselves before the credits roll.

It's to Cornish's credit that most (but not all) of the gang do manage that redemption. He shows us snapshots of their everyday lives - single parent families, living with grandparents, brief shouted conversations between rooms - as well as doing his utmost to make them more than just mindless hoodies hanging around on street corners. One of the most poignant moments of the script is delivered by Moses in a moment of respite against the alien threat, where he considers whether the government is sending in "monsters" to kill them. "We ain't killing each other fast enough" he ponders, "so they decided to speed up the process".

As the film progresses, it becomes clearer and clearer that Cornish is just as concerned with tackling why life on "the block" is the way it is as he is with extra-terrestrial action. That's not to say that the action takes second place to the social commentary. Cornish proves himself to be a dab hand at creating both fast paced fight sequences and tense set pieces that provide genuine scares. The alien creatures too, whilst clearly in part a product of a relatively small budget, provide ample threat and mystery throughout.

Moses slowly but surely takes his place as the film's primary protagonist, with Boyega's performance proving the most satisfying of the whole film. Having made Moses such an unlikable character at the start of the film, it is to his credit that Boyega bestows the role with depth and authenticity, so that when the story truly calls for it, we are fully behind him. Moses' home life is also one of the most hard-hitting, reminding us just why some teenagers fall into lives of delinquency. By the halfway point, Boyega owns each scene he's in, making his turn one to remember - his is a name that deserves to stick around for a good while in British cinema.

Whittaker's turn as recently qualified nurse Sam is also commendable, although the way her relationship with the gang who attacked her at the start of the night unfolds sometimes feels a bit too unlikely. I was also impressed with Hunter, who brought genuine menace and arrogance to local gangster Hi-Hatz.

Unfortunately (perhaps inevitably) not all the characters come off so well. Nick Frost as Ron the drug dealer and his upper-middle-class-trying-desperately-to-fit-in-with-gang-culture client Brewis (Luke Treadaway) provide some laughs, but never become more than one-dimensional caricatures. Within the teenage gang itself, not all members become sympathetic enough; Pest (Alex Esmail), for example, never shows much regret for his criminal indiscretions or understanding for his victims' feelings, essentially coming across as selfish and making it very hard to feel any connection to him at any point.

Attack The Block is ultimately a successful and enjoyable film that should please fans of horror and sci-fi, as well as anyone looking for decent homegrown British cinema. It's not without its faults, and doesn't succeed in everything it attempts, but Cornish's ambition and genuine talent as a writer and director deserves high praise - it's easy to forget when watching that this is his feature debut. Is it the next Shaun Of The Dead? No. But it doesn't need to be, nor does it try to be. What it definitely is, however, is a very promising start for a host of fresh British cinematic talent.

7/10

'00 Ten Part Two: "Shaun Of The Dead" (2004)

Shaun Of The Dead holds a peculiar honour, in that it is possibly the film that speaks to me the most over any other in terms of a realistic representation of the culture and society in which I live and have grown up. Peculiar indeed, considering the large amount of reanimated corpses present. But, unsurprisingly, it's not the zombies that make SOTD a film to which I can really relate, but the misfits, misanthropes and moaners who find themselves caught in the film's situation and the way in which they react to it. And it is in this respect that SOTD succeeds so comprehensively.

Let us consider the landscape of British cinema into which Shaun Of The Dead dared to tread. Big British films released around the same time as SOTD essentially fall into two distinct categories. Films in the first bracket present life in Britain, and in general, as a cross between an episode of Teletubbies and a Waitrose advert - all bright and fuzzy and colourful with absolutely no offensive content or sharp corners, and at the same time exceedingly prim, proper and upper-middle class in an oh-so-charmingly awkward yet frightfully optimistic kind of way, where the most taxing problem is who gets the last slice of Taste The Difference summer fruits torte. Love, Actually and Wimbledon are two prime candidates for this category that emerged around the same time as my chosen film. Essentially the cinematic equivalent of an overly-sugary marshmallow, with characters as one-dimensional and bastardly as they come, I pretty much despise every film that falls into category one.

Films in the second category have never been summed up better than by The Fast Show. So instead of trying to trump it, I'll just show you instead:

"Pukka", I hear you whimper. Think Snatch, think Layer Cake, and you're very much in the right area. Whilst I do find some of these films enjoyable on their own merits, the characters within them are anything but a relatable portrayal of the British people amongst whom I grew up.

So then, in 2004, came Shaun Of The Dead - so much more than just a comedy film, or even the "rom-com-zom" (romantic comedy with zombies) that its marketing purports it to be. Strip away the plague of shuffling, flesh-hungry cadavers swarming the country and Shaun Of The Dead presents to its audience the finest portrayal of - and most heartfelt tribute to - 21st Century suburban Britain.

Before we look at why this is the case, let us first cover all the other ways in which Shaun Of The Dead is cinematic perfection as well. Firstly, it's incredibly original. Looking at the film as a parody of the horror genre, it spoofs the situations and settings of horror movies, particularly zombie movies, not only incredibly accurately but also respectfully. Scriptwriters Edgar Wright (who also directs) and Simon Pegg (who plays the eponymous Shaun) lampoon the genre through clever subversion of conventions and cinematography, but also show what huge fans they are of zombie flicks through the cavalcade of references and tributes that charge at you throughout the film. Not being much of a zombie film buff myself, I picked up only a smattering of these, but a quick google reveals just how many nods there are to characters, actors, dialogue and a huge amount more from not only a great many zombie movies, but also a wide variety of other films and TV shows.

Second of all, Shaun Of The Dead is very, very funny. The basic premise of the film takes one of the most fundamental rules of successful comedy - either place extraordinary people in an ordinary setting, or ordinary people in an extraordinary setting (in SOTD's case obviously the latter) - and runs with it superbly. The humour in SOTD regularly comes organically from the inspired concept of normal people trying to deal with a zombie epidemic interrupting their day-to-day existence. To come up with an idea so simple yet so ingenious is a sublime feat in itself.

However, it's also in the finer detail that Shaun Of The Dead's comedy brilliance comes to light. The writing is incredibly sharp, with even seemingly the simplest of sequences being formulated to perfection. The opening scene is a prime example of the razor-sharp wit present throughout. We enter the film on a profile shot of a vacant Shaun sitting alone in the pub, eyes glazed and pint in hand. We quickly realise, however, that Shaun is actually in the middle of a fairly serious conversation with his girlfriend Liz (played by the fantastic Kate Ashfield). Then, as more and more of the gaps in the conversation are filled for us, it soon becomes apparent that what we perceived to surely be a private conversation between Shaun and Liz about spending time together away from their friends is actually taking place in full view and earshot of both Shaun's flatmate Ed (Nick Frost) and Liz's mates David and Diane (Dylan Moran and Lucy Davis). The opening reaches its peak when Shaun softly explains to Liz that Ed is a bit of a loner, indicating one of the reasons he likes to spend time with Ed is that he feels sorry for him. Ed then comprehensively obliterates this argument, and any sympathy Shaun may have conjured for him, with the unforgettable interjection: "Can I get... any of you cunts... a drink?". Not only has Wright created a brilliantly authentic suburban London pub setting within the first few minutes of the film, but he's also set the bar for the comedy within the film incredibly high - a bar which is maintained throughout.

However, raising Shaun Of The Dead from being just a very successful comedy to one of my top ten picks of the last decade is, as I said before, its affectionate and uncanny representation of suburban England. The characters are multi-layered and authentic, but also undeniably and authentically British. Shaun as the main character provides ample proof of this throughout the film. After a night on the booze, waking to a Britain overrun with the living dead, the hung over Shaun autopilots to the newsagent oblivious to the destruction around him. Once he and Ed realise what's happening, Shaun's first choice of action is to "have a sit down". Their plan for survival involves picking up Shaun's mum (Penelope Wilton) and now ex-girlfriend Liz, then settling down with a cup of tea and waiting for "all this to blow over". Their plan only changes in beverage choice, from a cuppa to a nice cold pint, when their eventual choice for a stronghold is local pub The Winchester Tavern (as it's safe, familiar, and somewhere Ed can smoke).

Essentially, Shaun, in both his attitude towards and strategy for survival of the zombie plague, is relentlessly optimistic with a tendency to consciously downplay the severity of what's happening, and ultimately a little bit crap. In short, very British. He's a hero, but not a particularly good one. Any time he tries to be even a little bit cool he immediately falls on his face - quite literally at one point when attempting to leapfrog a garden fence as a shortcut to the Winchester. But it's not just Shaun who exemplifies Britishness in Shaun Of The Dead. Nick Frost's Ed is essentially a mischievous boy caught in a slobbish twenty-something man's body. Lucy Davis brilliantly creates Diane as a dippy optimist repressing her frustration with her boyfriend David, an irritating know-it-all almost entirely driven by ferocious jealousy of Shaun and played superbly by Dylan Moran (a wild departure from his most famous role as alcoholic misanthrope Bernard Black in Black Books, which allows Moran to really demonstrate his skill as an actor). Wilton as Barbara, Shaun's mum, and Bill Nighy as dry stepfather Philip, bring in yet another facet of Britishness - a hybrid of "stiff upper lip" and "ignore it and it'll go away" mentalities, with Philip not wanting to make a fuss over his zombie bite as he's "run it under a cold tap", and Barbara combating the zombie threat by closing the curtains.

All very British indeed. But Shaun Of The Dead is always highly authentic, never hackneyed nor offensive, in its portrayal of the British social psyche. This is down to a combination of Pegg and Wright's superb writing, Wright's direction, and the collective cast's exceptional performances. I relate to each and every character in the film not only because of the depth of writing and quality of acting, but because I recognise pretty much each one from some part of my life, from main character Shaun's underachiever and Ed's idiotic rogue, right down to those on the periphery, such as Peter Serafinowicz's belligerent killjoy Pete. But as well as recognising them, even though some characters are more obviously likeable than others, none are clear-cut as "good guys" and "bad guys". Each character is flawed, and whilst you might hate some of them for the majority of the film, you can almost always relate to their point of view.

In a perverse fashion, it is the element of Shaun Of The Dead that is most removed from the real world that demonstrates how truly special it is in reflecting the reality of British people, and humanity in general. Through each of the characters' reactions to the dead walking the earth, we see one aspect of what makes up who the British people are - illuminated in a surreal, masterful and incredibly genuine way.