Simply A Masterpiece

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

It is a performances centric movie

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Like an episode of The Bill on ketamin...Didn't think much to it at all. Pretty cheap British film. Some OK acting but all done before. Nothing challenging and the whole thing kind of bored me. You know it's not great when you fiddle on your phone instead.If you want a top notch British crime film, don't waste an hour and a half on this, watch the wicked 'Welcome To The Punch' instead.If this were a drink it'd be White Lightening cider.A chavvy 3 out of 10 from me

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.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday MorningSerenity House is the latest in a long line of high rise London tower blocks scheduled for demolition, with the niggling problem of a few remaining residents on the top floor. A year before, however, a young man was brutally murdered there and his killers never brought to justice because nobody talked. A year later, those remaining residents find themselves at the mercy of a sniper's rifle, as one by one they are plucked off as they try to work out how to survive and who is behind it.These grim, gritty urban British dramas have all become pretty interchangeable, with some seemingly appearing out of nowhere on DVD, some getting maybe a limited release in theatres here and there and some enjoying more of a mainstream following. A familiar sight in these films tends to be the titular 'tower blocks', the high rising tenement complexes which, at the beginning of the film, are acknowledged as having originally being seen as a wondrous privilege after the second world war for those lower down the scale in society but which, over the years, deteriorated into decadent, run down hell holes, breeding grounds for crime. Despite it's impressive visual style and dark sense of foreboding, if Tower Block had gone down this same route of exploring social breakdown, it could simply have been an impressive but ultimately forgettable effort. As it is, it's a film in a league all of it's own, a hard hitting, unbearably tense and scary effort that works wonders.The first 'sniper shot', as the first victim casually sits and talks with another character over some coffee, genuinely made me jump out my skin and sets the tone for what's about to follow. It shakes the foundations of a typical urban Brit flick and adds a high concept idea all of it's own that makes it stand out and keep you riveted. The grainy, drained out camera style and whirring digital soundtrack were already working when the film started, but as the story progresses, it works even better. In this already dismal, hopeless setting, we find a host of characters, some more sympathetic than others, thrown together and forced to over come their hostility and prejudices to one another in order to make it out alive.Cast wise, it's best to focus on the two main characters, who also happen to be played by the trendiest, most up and coming stars. Jack O' Connoll is hardly stretching himself as a swaggering, tough talking wannabe bad boy, but that doesn't make his presence any less effective, and it's wise to play a part he tends to specialize in. As the heroine, Sheridan Smith delivers, as a feisty, determined young woman who tries to keep a cool head while everything around her goes mad. In their own way, all the supporting cast are as big a part in making it what it is and no one can be denied their dues.In a genre that has a tendency to be a bit hit and miss, Tower Block is just a success, tense, atmospheric, jumpy, challenging, uneasy, claustrophobic and just a shattering new spin in a genre, that pays off splendidly. *****

An unidentified sniper with a high-powered semi-automatic rifle is picking off the last residents of a decaying inner city tower block. He has control of the power to the building and has also set booby traps to prevent them leaving the top floor. The scene is set for a ferocious game of cat and mouse in this tense low-budget British thriller.What makes it good and watchable? The characters are everyday people believably portrayed by an accomplished cast of performers – which helps a great deal. Sheridan Smith is excellent as our vaguely slatternly heroine and Jack O'Connell stands out as Kurtis, the block's resident criminal running a protection racket on the others. His particular cavalier brand of sociopathic thuggery makes for compelling watching.Tension mounts as the group in-fight and bicker and are knocked off one by one as they try various mode of escape. Their plight is linked to the recent murder of a young man in building whereby they failed to help the police with their enquiries. Someone seems to be holding them responsible for not contributing to the perpetrators being caught. But who? The identity of the antagonist – when revealed – is a bit of a letdown and stretches credibility, but apart from that it's a gripping little piece that achieves effective results with a minuscule budget. The gore content isn't massive and the special effects are sparse, but the minimalist overall style keeps it lean and fast-paced. If you enjoy serial-killer sniper flicks, like TARGETS, TWO MINUTE WARNING, PHONE BOOTH, etc, then you'll get a blast out of this little gem.