Home › Reviews › In Theaters › Director Bob Colaers’s “Attack on Paradise” attempts a fresh perspective on well-worn tropes with mixed results. [Fantasia]

Director Bob Colaers’s “Attack on Paradise” attempts a fresh perspective on well-worn tropes with mixed results. [Fantasia]

By Douglas Davidson on July 20, 2026 • ( 1 )

When stories aren’t being told the way you want to see them, sometimes you have no choice but to make them yourself. Based on an artist’s statement, that’s the idea behind the creation of Attack on Paradise (formerly Paradise) by director Bob Colaers (Trizombie) and story creator/lead actor Saïd Boumazoughe (Rebel), who were frustrated by the action films hitting theaters, streamers, or on direct-to-video that didn’t represent who they are or their perspective. Having its world premiere in the Horizon 2026 section of Fantasia International Film Festival 2026, their action thriller oscillates between the grippingly, specifically personal and the almost distracting homages as audiences explore this brand-new tale. Attack on Paradise is at its sharpest when it moves its philosophical concepts forward, as well as when it embraces the action forefathers rather than mimics them.

A man is threatened at gunpoint by two individuals in a dimly lit room.

Saïd Boumazoughe as Suleyman in ATTACK ON PARADISE. Photo courtesy of Blue Finch Film Releasing.

After completing a seven-year prison sentence, all Suleyman (Boumazoughe) wants to do is go home to his mother and make amends. However, what he doesn’t realize is that his own block, Paradise, is now under the control of Prince (Achmed Akkabi), a gang leader on the run from authorities. Making matters worse, the day he comes home is the day a law enforcement task force plans to set upon Paradise in order to arrest Prince. Whether or not Suleyman wants to leave his past filled with violence behind or not, he’s going to have to get his hands dirty in order to protect the ones who matter most to him.

Two women engage in combat in a dark, foliage-filled environment, illuminated by green neon lights.

L-R: Clara Cleymans as Officer Yasmine and Imanuelle Grives as Nikita in ATTACK ON PARADISE. Photo courtesy of Blue Finch Film Releasing.

There’s a moment between Suleyman and entrapped Officer Yasmine (Clara Cleymans) in which one of the pair, during a brief respite amid the incursion, references Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, and that feels apropos. The exact intention, a reference to the idiom about the path to hell being paved with good intentions, isn’t directly tied to Dante’s work, but the fact that it’s referenced gives one pause in the greater view of the film and its themes. When the film begins, Suleyman is in the process of heading home to give his mother medication and has a run-in with racist cops leading to an escalation that lands him in prison. It’s a brief sequence and, in it, we learn several things about the character: he’s rash, has no fear of authority, and is dangerous when he wants to be. Cut to seven years later, he doesn’t so much seem reformed as pious. He wants to leave all of that behind, resulting in a physical performance by Boumazoughe that’s smaller than when we initially meet his Suleyman. The character hunches over, is modest in movement, and seems terrified that he’ll end up in a situation that will once more remove him from his family, specifically his mother. One read of the popular John Wick series is that Wick is fighting his way through purgatory on his way to fight G-d and earn his freedom. In that same way, one might see Suleyman as having explored the various levels of Hell and is now on his path to Paradise (Paradiso being the third portion of the Divine Comedy). To that end, one can view the entirety of Attack on Paradise as a reinterpretation of the final story, just with far more broken bones, gunshots, and stab wounds. Suleyman seeks to retain his status of freedom, to retain his peace, and reclaim what he’s lost on his journey through hell; however, in order to preserve what remains, he must face entirely new demons to do so.

The script by Boumazoughe, Sven Huybrechts (Torpedo: U-235), and Salahdine Ibnou Kacemi takes a fascinating approach to the typical “besieged building” setup by making Suleyman almost entirely on his own with no means of having allies. It’s not just that seven years have passed and the world he knew is different, it’s that the acquiring of Paradise by Prince has transformed it from an apartment block to a fortress wherein the community members are somehow entirely unaware of his deadly dealings because he’s kind to their faces while murdering their neighbors behind their back. This translates Suleyman as a character who isn’t trusted by the inhabitants or by the striking law enforcement because, depending on your perspective, he’s (a) new or (b) in the building and therefore a threat. It doesn’t matter how often he tells people he’s not involved, someone will ignore him and make him get involved; therefore, the narrative will constantly push the penitent Suleyman to his tipping point. The undercurrent of each situation that Suleyman finds himself is that those in the building who know his reputation believe him to be a violent man, those invading the building presume he’s going to harm them requiring the need for immediate deadly force, and he himself is aware that his options of staying alive are dwindling as are the odds of staying out of prison. This creates a perpetual tension as the reformed man desperately battles to remain alive so as to earn absolution from his mother, Fatima (Fatima Khanfour), a task which carries its own difficulties.

A dramatic still from "Attack on Paradise," showing one man flipping another off his feet in a dynamic moment of physical struggle.

Saïd Boumazoughe as Suleyman in ATTACK ON PARADISE. Photo courtesy of Blue Finch Film Releasing.

The film struggles, if one would call it that, by borrowing so heavily from the stories that inspired it — Die Hard (1988) and John Wick (2014) — that it rarely feels like its own story. Attack on Paradise does incorporate the very real threat of racism by law enforcement officers who see their badges as legal permission to assert their version of justice (i.e., law enforcement will kill a suspect without cause and they frequently do so without punishment or reprisal). This specific issue is one that Boumazoughe himself likely has or does face as an immigrant in the Netherlands. When the film teeters away from what makes the characters unique (such as the reference point of Fatima being Moroccan or the conflict Suleyman faces between abstaining from violence versus giving in) and leans into past action titles, one begins to feel like they may as well be watching those. On more than one occasion, Attack on Paradise exudes the aura of The Raid: Redemption (2011), Attack the Block (2011) (minus the alien invasion), and Dredd (2012), as well as the aforementioned Die Hard and John Wick, all of which have their own reference points, all of which are stellar adventures all on their own. However, it’s what Attack on Paradise does with the materials that either makes it stand on its own or come off as uninspired; unfortunately, there’re too many moments where one starts to think of the other films and how they accomplished the same narrative challenges for the good character work and interesting themes to properly take hold.

Film still from the action thriller ATTACK ON PARADISE. It features several people facing the camera while holding weapons.

Center-Back: Imanuelle Grives as Nikita in ATTACK ON PARADISE. Photo courtesy of Fantasia International Film Festival/Blue Finch Film Releasing.

There’s some amusement that two 2026 titles both evoke the Divine Comedy and the methods by which they’re evoked are similar. They Will Kill You frames the primary location, the Virgil, as an inverted journey up, its lead, Asia (Zazie Beetz), needing to navigate the buildings nine floors to free her sister. Here, while Colaers doesn’t attempt anything as directly lyrical, he somewhat does the same as his lead, Suleyman, must traverse liars, deceivers, false allies, and violent protectors to preserve himself and his mother. It is, nevertheless, thrilling to watch Boumazoughe believably overcome a variety of circumstances, delivering the kind of physical devastation that action fans sign up for when they buy a ticket. Regardless of whether one sees the film as too much of an homage to what inspired the creators or as the beginning of something new, there’s no doubt that Boumazoughe is a talent in the genre that we’ll want to keep track of moving forward.

Screening during Fantasia International Film Festival 2026.

For more information, head either to the official Attack on Paradise Fantasia International Film Festival webpage or Aattache Film webpage.

Final Score: 3 out of 5.