Tower Block

'Not the worst Sunday'

Yesterday, courtesy of free tickets via ShowFilmFirst, we all went to see Tower Block - "we" being myself, hubby, teen and a friend.
The residents of the top floor of Serenity House are waiting to be re-housed by the council and refusing to move. Me, I'd be out of there like a shot as the film opens with a 15 yr old boy being beaten to death outside their doors! The story jumps to a few months later; the murder is still unsolved, the residents are still there and now a gunman is taking potshots at them.
Starring Sheridan Smith, Russell Tovey and Jack O'Connell, Tower Block has a feel of your favourite TV characters being transported into a new situation, a cross between Die Hard and Phone Booth, so being used to seeing her in Two Pints of Lager... Smith's character Becky didn't feel right taking charge of the situation. Lumped together there were a lot of holes in the plot, a lot of things that in retrospect I thought 'why didn't they do such and such' or 'why on Earth did they try that? It was bound to fail'  and the action wasn't quite riveting enough to not let some of these doubts surface while watching. I still enjoyed it and would recommend it as a good evening out, though Sheridan Smith isn't going to replace Bruce Willis.

Then afterwards the Teen started raising a whole new set of questions... She'd enjoyed it immensely and wants the dvd the minute it comes out ... but she thought it was meant to be a comedy!!

Now, I'd seen a short trailer of shootings and screaming and people in fear for their lives plus checked it out on IMDB which describes Tower Block as a 'thriller' so that's what I went along expecting - and that's what I saw. The Teen and friend had no expectations and decided quite early on that they were watching a comedy. There were certainly a lot of funny one-liners  - "Not the worst Sunday I've had" says Tovey's character about being shot at and preparing to jump off the roof - but surely these were in the way of Alan Rickman's Die Hard quips? No says the Teen, even the shootings and all the blood were funny. Funny?? Not to my mind.
We've decided the only thing to do is watch it again. For now 4 stars as thriller, 5 stars from Teen as a comedy!