Joe Cornish

The boys on the south London estate in Attack the Block (2011) talk as though every exchange is a small competition. Cornish, who wrote and directed it, lets us enjoy their company without overlooking the mugging that introduces them. We laughed at their impatient exchanges, then felt uneasy about how quickly we had warmed to them. That is a good start for a creature film: we have something to think about before the aliens take up everybody's attention.

Cornish keeps returning to the boys during the pursuit, so their running and fighting never become anonymous. Jonathan Amos's editing keeps the action intelligible, while Steven Price's score helps drive it without doing all the work. John Boyega gives the film weight, and the gang's competitive speech keeps the humour close to the characters. Cornish's research with youth groups pays off in dialogue that the young cast sound comfortable speaking.

That was Cornish's feature debut; his screenwriting collaborations with Edgar Wright also include The Adventures of Tintin (2011) and Ant-Man (2015). Eight years passed before his second feature, the Arthurian adventure The Kid Who Would Be King (2019). He then wrote and directed episodes of the ghost-hunting series Lockwood & Co. (2023). Young people confronting fantastic dangers remain a recurring interest, though the estate siege gives us the firmest basis for recommending him.

The reservation about Attack the Block is Cornish's occasional insistence on explaining why we should care about the gang. His more explicit social commentary tells us what the actors have already made clear, and the dialogue becomes less persuasive. A few passages also let the tension drop, which is conspicuous in an 88-minute film. These are irritations in a film we warmly recommend, rather than reasons to keep our distance. If Cornish returns to the estate, we would welcome more of the boys' talk and fewer explanations on their behalf.