Tower Block (2012)

Fresh and Exciting

Absolutely the worst movie.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

*********************MAJOR SPOILERS***************************Tower Block is sort of a cross between Attack the Block, Saw & The Negotiator. This is probably another film that is easiest to summarise simply by dividing it into good and bad. I'll start with the good;GOOD - The opening scene shows a youth being beaten up and subsequently killed, albeit unintentionally. When a police officer makes door to door enquiries with the residents, he speaks to Becky (Sheridan Smith) who claims that she hasn't seen anything and refuses to assist the police. This might seem strange to those that live outside the UK, but in certain areas of the UK and within certain communities, the police are seen as 'the enemy' and people refuse to 'grass' for fear of reprisals. This doesn't necessary set the characters as being 'bad', but merely explores what parts of our society are like within the UK. I also liked the way that there were a good mix of characters living in the block - it would have been easy for the filmmaker's just to have a load of unlikeable chavs (or delinquents for those who are unfamiliar with UK slang), but there were clearly a mix of good and bad people which again meant that the characters weren't entirely clichéd. We don't get much background information on the characters, but we know enough about them to understand that they all have their own identify. Again I felt it was a fair representation of our society. A special nod should also go to Sheridan Smith and Julie Graham who I felt probably gave the strongest performances. There is a particularly effective scene between the objectionable Kurtis (Jack O'Connell) and family man Neville (Ralph Brown). Kurtis had been taking payment from the residents to 'protect' them, but when Kurtis pushes Neville too far he punches him and knocks him to the ground. I believe the point of this scene was to show how weak and cowardly bullies are and effectively Kurtis did try to bully many of the residents throughout the film. I thought that was a good bit of writing. Tower Block moves at a very brisk pace and I don't recall there being a dull moment throughout the film. It certainly kept me entertained for the majority of its 90 minute running time. BAD; OK, it's impossible to overlook how far fetched and ridiculous that this film felt at times. We have a sniper who seems to be able to pick people off the instant a curtain opens. How come he always knew which window they would appear from and be able to shoot them instantly every time? He would only be able to point his sniper at one window at a time so is it just luck that he happens to always have his sniper trained on the right window. Next we come to the booby traps - I mean geez who was his accomplice John Kramer aka Jigsaw from the Saw films. I just found it hard to believe that a police officer would have the skill or the knowledge to be able to concoct these elaborate traps. In Saw, we learn that John Kramer is able to create elaborate traps, but it's explained that he is a Civil Engineer and hence has the required knowledge to be able to create complex mechanical traps. Are we really expected to believe that a police officer is able to do this? Even if he had the skill to set these traps up (which seems unlikely to me). How on earth would he be able to do all this without anybody noticing? He also manages to block a fire exit by placing a skip in front of the door. How did he do that? Did he have a mate with a skip lorry and a skip? It just got more and more ludicrous as it went on. For me the worst aspect of the film was the final 10 minutes or so; the vigilante police officer decides to enter the Tower Block to pick off the remaining residents. What surprised me about this is that he ends up making it easier for the residents to get the better of him. If he'd stayed where he was, they still would have struggled escaping. When watching this scene, it reminded me of that line towards the end of Crocodile Dundee 2 "When we were kids, did you chase the snake into the cane fields". In other words, why did he go into the lions den (so to speak) and make himself more vulnerable. The end of the film is also a bit ambiguous as you find yourself not sure whose side you should be on - the residents were wrong because they didn't do anything to prevent the sniper/police officer's son from getting killed, but then again the police officer killed a lot of people who genuinely may not have known who killed his son. I found the ending to be somewhat of an anti-climax and also thought it was a strange way to wrap the film up. I also wasn't impressed by Jack O'Connell's 'over-acting'. Despite some of my reservations Tower Block is still worth a look. In spite of its many flaws, it is entertaining and I can honestly say that there was never a dull moment. At times the writing was really sharp, but due to the numerous plot holes and the rather anti-climatic ending it's nothing more than an average film.

TOWER BLOCK follows in the footsteps of plenty of recent low-budget thrillers in having a single location as its setting. I always enjoy the possibilities of such story lines, which require the writers to work harder on the dialogue to bring the characters and the situation to life. It also makes it trickier for the director to elicit suspense from such a scenario, but when it works it works really well. And that's the case here.Writer James Moran also did the dues on COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES and this film has much the same feel to it: a respect of B-movies and a genuine love of the genre. The story is simple and extremely shocking, punctuated with moments of in-your-face violence that lend gritty realism to the proceedings. In essence, it's a bunch of disparate characters trapped in a corridor by a sniper, and yet maximum tension is generated from such a scenario.The actors are fine in their roles, with Sheridan Smith's resourceful heroine a modern-day Ellen Ripley, and Jack O'Connell's would-be villain undergoing a particularly interesting character arc. Also nice to see Ralph Brown on the screen some twenty years after ALIEN 3. The directors handle the material well, generating plenty of excitement, and even when the story dips into cliché – as at the climax – it still works well. TOWER BLOCK is hardly original, but it's nonetheless a well made and gripping little thriller.

Derivative and largely formulaic thriller, but nevertheless one that remains suspenseful and compelling throughout the entire running time thanks to the raw & gritty atmosphere and a handful of extremely brutal shock-moments. Reminiscent to the other recent British flick "Attack the Block" in terms of tone & social setting, "Tower Block" takes place in a pauperized and crime-infested big city suburb where people abandoned all hope for prosperity long time ago already and desperately avoid every type of contact with fellow human beings. The film entirely takes place in a large apartment complex that is scheduled for destruction and only the residents of the top floor still live there. One Saturday morning, they are rudely awakened by a relentless psycho killer with a sniper rifle. He – or she – fires at everything that moves and placed booby-traps across the building. There's a obvious link with an unsolved murder committed in the block a few months earlier and now the asocial tenants are forced to rely on each other for survival. The biggest trumps for a film such as "Tower Block" are surprise and unpredictability. All the residents are equally insignificant, meaning that literally anyone of them could be next. And they could be next at any random and possible moment, too. Writers/directors duo James Nunn and Ronnie Thompson aptly play with these trumps, as the characters definitely don't die in the order you'd expect. Sniper murders can perhaps get a bit monotonous after a while, but there's enough diversity in killing methods and circumstances. Obviously there's quite a large number of holes and irrationality in the plot and the climax (as in: revelation of the sniper's identity) is weak and disappointing. The acting performances vary between adequate and amateurish, with good roles for tough blond gal Sheridan Smith and "Alien³" veteran Ralph Brown. In case you want to seek out more "serial sniper-killer" movies after this, I warmly recommended the almighty "Dirty Harry" but also the more obscure "Two-Minute Warning", "Targets" and "The Deadly Tower"

When I saw the trailer for Tower Block it looked rough and brutal. Sadly it never became brutal but still it's an excellent flick. Everyone knows those tower blocks were you never wants to resident. This is one of them. When there is screaming in the streets below you turn on your television or close your doors, got nothing to do with you. Exactly what is going on here.We see someone running from some hoodies toward Tower Block 31. After being killed no-one wants to be involved although Becky (Sheridan Smith) witnessed the beating and has been hit also by the hoodies. The police isn't wanted in such areas. Life goes on until the tower block is under the eye of a sniper and is killing everyone.It's the first attempt of UK co-directors James Nunn and Ronnie Thompson and they succeeded in their mission. Not only you wanted to know what is going on and who's the sniper it's also the acting of Sheridan and Jack O'Connell (Kurtis) that takes this flick to a higher level. It has an overall brutal look but you hear bullets fly and hit but it's almost never shown. The first hit is the goriest one and you just can't see it coming. Enjoyable flick were scum needs each other to survive and where they also become friends to survive. Gore 1,5/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5