Attack the Block

Attack the Block

88 min -  Action | Comedy | Sci-Fi  -  13 May 2011 (UK)

Director:     Joe Cornish

Writer:         Joe Cornish

Stars:          John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker and Alex Esmail

Attack the Block is a science fiction horror film directed by Joe Cornish and starring John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker, Nick Frost and Luke Treadaway. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 11 May 2011. It premiered at the South by Southwest festival in Austin Texas on 12 March 2011. Attack the Block is the directorial debut of Cornish. 

Plot

As Sam is walking to her home in Lambeth, she is mugged by the gang-Pest, Dennis, Jerome, Biggz and leader Moses. They take her phone but just as they are taking her ring, a meteor crashes into a nearby parked car. In the chaos, Sam manages to run to the tower block, where she calls the police. Meanwhile, Moses approaches the smashed car, thinking that there may be valuables in it, but he is attacked by a creature, which then runs off into a nearby alotment shed. Not wanting to be disgraced in front of his gang, he chases it down and the gang kill it in the shed. Realising that it is a strange animal that none of them have seen before, they agree to take it to the tower block's resident drug dealer, Ron (Nick Frost), who "watches National Geographic".

On the way home, they bump into the neighbourhood girls and tease them with the corpse of the creature. Once at the dealers flat at the top of the block, Ron agrees it is strange and not of this world-a notion confirmed by a young, posh, zoologist named Brewis, who had come for marujuana. Thinking the body valuable to scientists, the gang ask the owner of the flat, and Ron's boss, resident gangster and rapper Hi-Hatz, if they can keep it in the "weed room", as it is the safest place in the block. He agrees, if Moses becomes "his boy" and starts to deal his drugs-which Moses accepts. As the gang plot about who to call to start getting money for the body, they spot more meteors flying into the estate. Eagerly anticipating the chance to kill more "gremlins", they tool up with machetes, softball bats, swords, switchblades and fireworks and then use mopeds and bikes to get to the meteors. Two young kids, Probs and Mayhem, also go to the crash site, eager to prove how tough they are.

However, when there, the see that these new aliens are far bigger, and have huge claws and teeth. One approaches them, so they all retreat back to the block's protection. Only just about escaping the aliens on the ramps and stairs around the block, they seem to have escaped the creatures-but the police catch Moses whilst the gang hides, watching. Sam, in the police van, verifies that Moses was the mugger, but two aliens suddenly attack the policemen, killing both, and attacking the van that Sam and Moses are stuck in. The gang decide to help, throwing a large firework around the van to disorient the aliens, and then Dennis uses the smoke to approach the van and let Moses out of the holding cell in the back. Thinking they are all safe, the three are suddenly attacked again, and they speed off in the police van, being pursued by the aliens. At a corner in the estate, they suddenly smash into Hi-Hatz BMW. Hatz recognises them and is enraged that they wrecked his car. As Sam runs off, the gang catch up to Moses and Dennis, just as Hi-Hatz pulls a gun out. Hatz is angered that they blame the whole thing on an "alien", until they spot one hiding behind his BMW. Hatz forces his henchman to check it out, but the henchman is then savagely killed by the alien, which Hatz kills with his pistol, as the gang run off to an open garage.

They once again attempt to get back to the block on hijacked mopeds, but Biggz falls off his and hides in a large metal bin. The rest just about make it into the block, but not before an alien bites into Pest's leg. They confiscate a pistol off Probs and Mayhem, and drag Pest up the stairs; the gang sees Sam going into her flat, and force their way in. She is terrified, but they assure her that they are on the same side, united against the aliens. A nurse, Sam treats Pest's leg, but says he needs to go to a hospital. As they discuss leaving, an alien bursts through her front door. Moses takes the initiative and uses Dennis' sword to cut its head off. They examine its body-it is so black, all it looks like is a blur with blue teeth. Hearing more coming, the gang and Sam move up the block to the neighbourhood girls apartment. They are met with skeptiscism, but two aliens suddenly attack through a window, killing Dennis. One alien, confused by a bed sheet thrown over its head, is killed by the girls with a lamp and a skating boots blade, but the second alien is about to kill Moses when Sam comes to his rescue, killing it with a kitchen knife. The girls, recognising that they only want the boys, kick them out and flee to the streets downstairs. The gang and Sam decide to go to Ron's safe room and hide out there, but are shot at by Hi-Hatz and his two goons. However, they make it to the stair well and run away. Hi-Hatz, seeing another alien, attempts to kill it, but misses his shots, and is chased back to the elevator. The alien manages to get into the lift and kill his goons, but Hi-Hatz manages to kill it and emerged, covered in blood, back to find Moses.

On the top floor, the gang, joined by Brewis, realise that Ron's apartment' floor has aliens lurking in it, so they use fireworks to scare them off and use the smoke created as cover to reach Ron's. But Jerome, distracted by Brewis running, gets lost in the smoke, and is killed by the aliens, just as the rest make it into Ron's, where Hi-Hatz lays in wait with a gun. Just as he is about to kill Moses, aliens attack through the window behind him. Moses, Pest, Brewis and Sam reach the safety of the weed room, but Hi-Hatz is torn apart by the twenty or so aliens that lay in wait outside of the weed room.

Biggz, still trapped in the bin by one persistent alien, uses his phone to call everyone he can to help fight, but police, investigating the death of the two officers, have cordened off the whole block-no one can help now. Luckily, Probs and Mayhem use a super soaker filled with oil instead of water and a cracker as a flamethrower and kill the guarding alien. Up in the weed room, Brewis sees liquid on Moses' jacket under the UV light and theorizes that the first, small alien was a female, who left a pheremone on Moses to lure in the bigger males. Moses realises that they can only smell his gang and the dead female, as they have no eyes, and hatches a plan. Sam escapes the weed room silently-the aliens can only smell, not see. She goes to Moses' empty apartment and turns on his oven's gas and shuts the door, then leaves the tower block safely. Moses then straps the dead female to his back and bursts out of the weed room, with Pest firing two fireworks to distract the aliens. Sprinting to his apartment, with all the aliens in tow, he just about makes it alive, and throws the female into his kitchen, where all the males initially go, following their noses. Just as they are about to attack him, he shoots a firework into the oven, and jumps out of his flat, just escaping a huge explosion which kills all the aliens. Sam, the girls, Biggz, Probs, Mayhem and all the people from the estate watch below, cordened by police, as Moses falls to his death, but he just about manages to grab onto a flag and drag himself up.

Pest, Brewis, Ron and finally Moses, are arrested by the police when they return to the ground floor, but Sam tells the police that Moses and Pest are innocents who actually saved her life. In the back of the police van, Moses and Pest hear the crowds chanting for Moses, and Moses smiles in the knowledge that he has saved the block and the world.

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