Kids Playing Kids: Attack the Block

We saw sneak preview of this movie when it came out instantly fell in love.

The plot unfolds something like this: Aliens seem to be attacking a South London council estate on Bonfire Night. The resident of the estate are oblivious to all this except for a close-knit group of young friends, their weed hook-up, one of his clients, and a young nurse that the close-knit friends attempted to mug earlier in the night. It's up to this rag-tag group to save South London, and very possibly the world...

American translation: Aliens seem to be attacking a South London public housing high-rise on a holiday that is celebrated like the 4th of July. There's lots of intermittent fire works and celebratory shenanigans taking place to cover the presence of the aliens.

Watch it if you like: The Goonies, Shaun of the Dead, The Lost Boys, Alien.



The kids: Every single kid in this movie gives a stellar performance, the youngest of them often steeling scenes. This is also John Boyea's first film and he is as fantastic as you'd imagine.

The social commentary: This movie is brimming with sub-textual  commentary, not the least of which is a moment that highlights that these boys who've spend the whole movie trying to be more adult than they are indeed children. But the film also touches on race, racism, systemic racism, class, ageism and more.

But what else have these kids been in?: Franz Dramen was in Edge of Tomorrow (aka Live Die Repeat) and John Boyea was in this little movie called Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

But did we like it: We love this movie. Highly recommend watching if you like fun, scary, poignant horror movies.