Tower Block follows the last group of residents on the top floor of a tower block as the await to be rehoused before the crumbling tower is demolished. However, when a young boy is beaten to death right outside their doors, the residents decide to lock themselves away and refuse to talk to the police, rather than help. In fact, it's only the feisty Becky (Sheridan Smith) who tries to have a go at helping before getting knocked out, but even she remains tight lipped. Three months later and a mysterious sniper has the tower block on lockdown and the rag tag group of remaining residents must try and band together to find a way out of the tower block or wait to be picked off one-by-one.
Now, I'll probably get trashed for this one (again!) but Tower Block is yet another film that uses the locale of an ageing tower block to come out this year (see The Raid and Dredd 3D). However, it's safe to say that the location is where the similarities end. Rather than having the villain holed up in the top floor of the building and having he hero's trying to find their way to the top, our hero is already at the top floor, the villain is seemingly untouchable in a different tower block and it's a desperate attempt to find a way out. However, a setting is nothing if the Directors (James Nunn and Ronnie Thompson) and Director of Photography (Ben Moulden) didn't know what to do with it. Say what you like about our Brit flicks (whether you find them too slow or too low budget) but we certainly know how to make a beautiful looking film. The camera work and mise-en-scene to this film is brilliant. The sweeping shot across Becky's flat, as she hides inside and the young boy is being beaten up outside, is just one example of the interesting filmmaking on show here. My only criticism can be that I don't think the gritty setting was used to it's fullest (there were floors and floors of empty and decaying old flats and corridors that could have been used.)
Tower Block's main strength doesn't really lie in it's gritty locale as it falls mainly to the leading roles of Becky (Smith) and Kurtis (Jack O'Connell). They really do hold this film together and really do well with what they have been given. Unfortunately for Smith, she is the one that is given the least to work with. She's a plays a feisty young girl who lives an independent lonely life on her own (shown to us when she brings a date home for a one night stand), but her character arc never really goes anywhere - she's still feisty at the end and still alone. However, O'Connell really has a meaty role and is arguably more of the lead character out of the two of them. He plays Kurtis, a loveable lone rogue who makes the residents of the tower block pay him £20 a week so he won't break into their flats. It's only when the proverbial hits the fan that he reluctantly bands together with the rest of the residents to try and find a way out together. The fact that we see him struggle with this helps his character to develop and become more likeable (unlike Smith's character, who is all too ready to join forces) and also have a few funny one-liners in the process.
But it's not all smooth sailing for Tower Block as there are two main pitfalls which really hold the film back. Unfortunately for Smith and O'Connell, even though they do really well with the roles that they were given, the rest of the supporting cast are rather underdeveloped and underacted. Characters like Jenny (Montserrate Lombard) have brilliantly silly scenes (she plays a young chavvy Mother, who constantly shouts at her kids), yet when she is grieving over their deaths, she is barely given any screen time for us to actually care. Carol (Julie Graham) and her son Daniel (Harry McEntire) suffer a similar fate when we just don't seem to care that they have lost their Husband and Father - and neither do they. Bad writing or bad acting? I'd probably go with the former. It's only really when Neville (Ralph Brown) looses his wife, Violet (Jill Baker) and sits silently in the corridor stroking her hair on his lap, that we really get any insight into the loss that these characters are experiencing.
It's basically the bad writing that really holds the film back. Characters are given silly on-the-nose dialogue which sounds really stilted and staged at times - when Carol delivers her "You're not in control anymore" speech is where it's especially evident. The underdeveloped characters also really hinder the reveal of the mad sniper. Their motive is extremely weak and completely laughable - it seems that writer, James Moran doesn't understand that a compelling villain is just as important as interesting protagonists. The villain in Tower Block is given zero backstory and is in no way personally involved with what they wanted revenge for that it makes me wonder if the film would have benefitted from having a faceless villain.
However, the biggest crime against the writing and structure of the film is the fact that some parts really do drag. What we are given is a whodunnit mystery narrative, where we try and guess who the killer is, but we are only really given one potential suspect. So, the film is basically left for us to just wait until the next death scene, which to be honest gets quite boring.
Overall, Tower Block had great potential to be another brilliantly British affair, following in the footsteps of Attack the Block and the more recent The Sweeney, however underdeveloped characters and a weak storyline means that the film greatly suffers.
**½ / *****
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