“Attack the Block” is the debut film from British comedian Joe Cornish, and it’s been billed as a sci-fi comedy. While there are plenty of chuckles and even a few big laughs, it plays more like a subversive, action-driven survival-horror thriller — a genre spoof so good it actually improves on the genre it’s riffing on. Indeed, with its escalating sense of dread, acutely drawn characters, and truly weird extraterrestrial invaders, it may be the tensest, tersest film of the summer.
In theory, “Attack the Block” is an alien invasion movie. But it eschews the epic scale of big-budget extraterrestrial assault flicks in favor of a more intimate setting: a giant block apartment complex in South London, where a surly gang of troubled teenage hoodlums, along with the young nurse (Jodie Whittaker) they tried to mug, must fend off a pack of hairy, pitch-black alien beasties with layered rows of glowing fangs.
Mr. Cornish tweaks the usual alien scare-movie tropes — the sneak attacks, the disbelieving neighbors, the ragtag band of misfits who must fight their way out against impossible odds — but refuses to let the satire unwind the grisly tension.
If anything, the considerable suspense makes the many laughs even more impressive. Make no mistake: Mr. Cornish knows funny — but he’s interested in more than obvious one-liners. Along with editor Jonathan Amos, Mr. Cornish manages to punctuate the film with a subtle visual wit, frequently cutting away to imagery that gives the previous scene an ironic twist. It’s a holistic, cinematic approach to humor. As both writer and director, he was able to craft character-driven comedy that relies as much on quirky delivery and offbeat timing as laugh-’em-up punch lines.
Of course, character-driven comedy requires great, funny characters, and Mr. Cornish’s smart, spiffy script is fleshed out by a crew of wonderful, mostly young actors. As the young nurse Sam, Miss Whittaker is equal parts angry and vulnerable as she is forced into working side by side with the same young men who attacked her just hours before.
But her role as the put-upon outsider is mostly just a vehicle through which to understand Moses, the gang’s stoic, wannabe-tough leader. Played by John Boyega, the character bears the brunt of the story’s surprising dramatic weight.
Mr. Boyega holds up his end, giving Moses a tired, glowering presence. He’s a tough kid who, at 15, has already lived a tough life. But Mr. Boyega slowly reveals that the hard exterior shell is in part a reflexive cover for Moses’ natural boyishness. It’s his genuinely affecting transformation from thuggish teen to man — and hero — that ultimately makes the movie more than just a zippy, accented exercise in sci-fi send-up.
In the wake of recent rioting in the U.K., “Attack the Block” may take some heat for its largely sympathetic view of young, aimless British hoods. And yet it is Mr. Cornish’s soft insistence that some of those hoods are real people, often forgotten but always worth caring about anyway, that gives the tension its strength. Unlike the many big-budget blockbusters that get trapped in their own elevator pitches, “Attack the Block” has the decency to care less for its genre-hopping concept than for its characters.
★★★★
TITLE: “Attack the Block”
CREDITS: Written and directed by Joe Cornish
RATING: R for gore, profanity, drug use
RUNNING TIME: 88 minutes
MAXIMUM RATING: FOUR STARS
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