While Joe Cornish's Attack The Block seems to be the agreed-upon best film at this year's SXSW Film Festival, concerns over the film's sometimes-impenetrable British slang have Hollywood questioning the film's marketability, and--as a result-- the film remains without U.S. distribution. Some have suggested that the film could be subtitled to get around this problem, while others have argued against the idea, saying it would "ruin" the film. But is that really the worst thing that could happen to Attack The Block? Not by a long shot. Read on for our prognosis below, my gentle Examiner readers...
When Joe Cornish debuted his first feature film, Attack The Block, at this year's SXSW Film Festival, the first audience that saw the film did a very good job of spreading the word about the flick's greatness: by Attack The Block's second-screening, the film was already being hailed as "the best film at SXSW", and that buzz only continued up through the film's third and final screening (which I was lucky enough to attend; review HERE). The best part about all of this, of course, is that the buzz wasn't wrong: Attack The Block really was the best film at SXSW this year, and it's a film that I'm confident will earn Cornish a legion of fans as soon as it starts screening. But therein lies the problem.
For those that are just hearing about Cornish's film for the first time, Attack The Block is an alien-invasion comedy set in London. A group of pre-teen street punks-- all on the verge of crossing the line from "hoodies" to "career criminals"-- happens to be at the wrong place at the right time when an alien invasion comes to their South London neighborhood: an alien literally falls out of the sky at their feet. Our heroes kill the alien and claim its body as their prize ("We can sell it on eBay!"), but when that first encounter turns out to be the opening volley in a much larger battle, the boys are forced to band together to protect their ramshackle apartment building from an onslaught of even bigger, creepier aliens. The film's hilarious, scary, and thrilling in all the best ways (see the trailer on the left), and definitely feels like it shares DNA with producer Edgar Wright's Hot Fuzz and Shaun of The Dead. Sounds great, right? Well, there's a problem.
The problem-- as I mentioned in my review of the film-- is that the film might not be screening on American soil again any time soon. In an effort to keep the dialogue and characters in his film as true-to-life as possible, Cornish scripted with the kind of Brit-slang that you might actually hear spoken by real-world, South London street punks. The result is this: some lines of dialogue are a little hard to understand, more than a few slang terms whizz by without explanation, and a few pop-culture references (such as the film's cast referring to "playing FIFA" rather than, say, "playing Call of Duty") fall just the tiniest bit flat. And Hollywood-- who's been left in charge of picking up the film and putting it into theaters-- is worried about that.
The common concern amongst American distributors seems to be that Attack The Block will be too hard for American audiences to understand: "People won't understand the dialogue, and even if they do, they're not gonna understand the slang", and so on. Rumors sprung up just before the SXSW Film Festival that some American distributors might be interested in releasing the film with subtitles (yes, an English film with subtitles; Oh, Hollywood, you do the darndest things). That rumor has now become a point of debate amongst those who have seen the film, specifically whether or not subtitling the film will "ruin" it. That seems extreme-- the film isn't "changed" in any way by adding subtitles, and Cornish admits he'd be happier adding subtitles than not having distribution at all-- and not a little hyperbolic...especially when we consider the alternatives.
I submit to you the following: Subtitling Attack The Block isn't the worst thing that could happen to it.
From the moment that Attack The Block started gaining a reputation as "that awesome movie that American audiences won't be able to understand", rumors have circulated that Hollywood might be interested in remaking the film. Remaking popular foreign films for American audiences isn't a new idea by any stretch of the imagination (just look at David Fincher and his forthcoming remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), but the idea of remaking a British film-- that features no non-Englsh dialogue-- certainly is. And having seen Attack The Block, I can tell you that a remake of Joe Cornish's film (even if it were to be directed by Joe Cornish) isn't just insulting, it's flat-out depressing.
Cornish's film is excellent-- incredibly entertaining, hilarious, frightening, and a million other adjectives. While watching it, it immediately became not just the best film I'd seen at SXSW, but one of my new favorite movies. It's going to be hard to rally the film geek troops in support of the film-- as so many of them haven't seen Cornish's film-- but to put it in a context that you might understand, imagine if someone had suggested that Shaun of The Dead be re-made for American audiences because the British dialogue was just "too hard to understand". You'd be insulted, right? You'd be outraged, right? Well, that's how many are feeling about the idea of an Americanized Attack The Block right now.
All of this is particularly silly when you consider the other British films found success in the States despite their sometimes impenetrable accents: Trainspotting, for instance, or Sexy Beast. These aren't films that were put into theaters with the expectation that they'd become massive, for-the-masses hits, but they did reasonably well for what they were. Attack The Block has the potential to become a crossover hit, though-- you've got truly impressive creature-effects, you've got comedy, you've got action, you've got heart-- and none of its entertainment value is diminished by the fact that some of its dialogue is a little hard to understand. Does it matter what "bruv" means when you're watching a really well-made movie about kids fighting aliens?
Subtitling the film seems stupid (and speaks volumes about what Hollywood thinks of audiences in general), yes, and remaking it seems even worse, but-- amazingly-- there's an even more troubling option: to not release Attack The Block stateside at all. It'd heartbreaking to think that this film wouldn't screen in American theaters, but right now the situation appears to be at a stalemate: no one's stepped up to the plate to distribute the film, even with Cornish agreeing to allow Attack The Block to be subtitled. While not releasing the film in American theaters isn't as repulsive an idea as remaking it with an American cast, it's certainly a close second. It would seem like Drafthouse Films-- the distribution company that Alamo Drafthouse owner Tim League set up specifically to release films like this (diamonds in the rough that might not otherwise get an American release; see also last year's Four Lions, which Drafthouse Films distributed)-- would be all over Attack The Block, but so far, there's been no publically-stated interest.
While we remain hopeful about the film's chances here at Comedy Examiner HQ (a film this good simply couldn't go on without U.S. distribution forever...could it?), it's not impossible to think that one of these other, lesser fates might befall Cornish's film. It'd be an absolute tragedy for Attack The Block to remain distributor-less on American shores-- and an even bigger bummer to see the film remade-- but for now, all we can do is wait and see if someone does the right thing. Here's hoping that Drafthouse Films (or, hell, why not, The Weinstein Company) steps up to the plate.
UPDATE: Attack The Block just won the audience award for "Best Midnight Feature" at SXSW 2011. If you've still got that SXSW badge sitting around, we strongly suggest you make your way to the Alamo Drafthouse's Ritz location tonight at midnight to catch the film. If you're curious to learn even more about Attack The Block, allow me to point you in the direction of THIS interview I conducted earlier in the week with director Joe Cornish, producer Edgar Wright, and Attack The Block co-star Nick Frost.
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