Review of Attack the Block

Bar 'Nil by mouth' and the Bill you don't see much of South London on the screen so I was looking forward to this.

I was disappointed by the portrayal of the teenage characters. Setting up the main protagonists as violent little hood rats who put a knife to a girl loses audience sympathy / belief within the first half hour. Particularly mine, having been violently mugged in the car park of my flats a few years back. Believe me I wouldn't team up with the ?!**!! who did that to fight off a zombie apocalypse, let alone a few hairy aliens.

Worse it reinforces the stereotype that kids who live on council estates are stupid violent thugs. Not true and pretty insulting to the majority. I'm sick of this idea that if you're poor or grow up in a rough area you're OK with violence and gang culture, and I don't like seeing it glorified. The one dimensional characterisation - including the 'posh boy' - seems to based on some weird middle class media dream version of the UK.

What a wasted opportunity. maybe someone should buy Joe Cornish a dictionary for Christmas so he can look up 'anti hero'.