The aliens in Attack the Block aren’t that Other. Outside that jaw and fangs that glow neon-blue, they’re just moving shadows. And they’re black. “Really black, blacker than my cousin Fela.” The gang of young teenage boys are the more interesting Other. A couple black kids, a white dude, and a lad with a fro who could pass for offspring of that weird looking lightskinned guy from The Black Eyed Peas. Looks-wise, they don’t seem that different from the newest Degrassi-class or those kids from Skins. Wagwan. Merc. Allow it. It’s when the kids speak that we realize this is a movie of another world.
The Block is a London council-estate, a set of rundown high-rise apartments not quite The Wire and not quite Eastern Bloc. Oval Station is the Underground stop you need. Think the social realist films of Mike Leigh, specifically All or Nothing, and Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank. Or that fat girl character from Little Britain. Moses and his lads, teenaged residents of The Block, don’t have a lot to do and even less money to do it so they rob and rascal, navy bandanas over their mouths. When they discover a rather meek looking alien no bigger than a puppy, they track it to a shack, shoot firecrackers at it, beat it, then mount it on a stick a la Lord of the Flies. Easy peasy, lemon squeezie. The following aliens, big ones this time, that crash London come looking for the guys that did in their friend. Not so lemon squeezie, but the boys welcome the distraction. “Tool up,” Moses orders and the boys race to gather weapons and talk their way out of their parent-imposed curfew.
These are charming kids. They’re all smarter than their lower-middle class lot. Too smart, but likely not smart enough to move up. The white kid questions the value of overseas humanitarian work when there’s so much local suffering. A local girl avoids the alien corpse because she doesn’t want to catch chlymidia. She’s read enough about STDs to pick the more common one. Moses is the leader because he’s got the most to offer. He’s handsome, charismatic, and resourceful. At only fifteen, he gets a job dealing for High Hat, the local grower-cum-rapper (“Get that strap / get that snitch”).
These kids, despite their somewhat dismal situations, have surprising bravery and wherewithal. When it’s time to book back to the block, time to avoid the chasing aliens, they leap from walkway to walkway, peddle their bikes furiously, and toss pizza-delivery scooters at their pursuers. It’s as if they’ve spent hours on a shooting range, they’re so steady of hand when it comes to firecracker-tubes. They’re tough because they live tough. Their guardians are either over-busy or completely absent. While the others have a Nana or a mum to cook meals, Moses lives alone, pizza boxes and McDonalds wax paper decorate his living room and a Spider-Man comforter eternally unmade on his bed.
There are some hints that these kids are scared of the not-much they have to look forward to in adult Block life. Anyone older, lighter, and with a seemingly better life, these kids victimize. The movie opens as they rob a twenty-something nurse named Sam, her blue knee-length peacoat screaming privilege. They have zero tolerance for the college kid, Brewis, who every so often comes to the block to buy weed. Even if he does blast and rap-loudly-along-to KRS-One on his IPod (Woop, Woop, that’s the sound of the police). It’s only a slight fear, though. They seem to be at peace with who they are. “What kind of aliens attack some shitty council estate?” one of them asks. “Aliens looking for a fight,” another answers.
One kid’s bike helmet is nothing more than eggshell between an alien’s jaws. Faces get peeled off by the nose. Yet, there’s a shortage of fear in these kids even when a couple of them get got. As a result, there isn’t enough tension and angst to make this horror. Remember Hudson screaming as Bishop stabbed the steak knife between his fingers or Harry Dean Stanton dumbstruck when John Hurt gets really, really hurt. There’s none of that here. The kids celebrate instead of cry. Attack the Block is more Goonies or Monster Squad than Alien. This is a nice movie, but a movie for kids who don’t have time for highfalutin mortality. A nice movie for kids who still just want to have fun. Allow it.
