adonis98-743-186503 The life of career criminal Carlton Leach. Rise of the Footsoldier is 98% Sex, Bad Language and Drugs alongside alot of people getting punched in the nose. The acting is horrible, the characters are terrible and i didn't feel anything regarding anyone and the film has this Ritchie vibe that it tries to achieve and it fails when on the same time it tries to become the Next 'Departed' or something along those lines and it fails hard on all levels that a good biography needs to have. (0/10)

david-smojver This is a movie that is trying to be a gangster movie, same as "Snatch" or "Lock Stock and two smoking barrels".This movie failed on all accounts. Casting: Failure, especially for the lead. Script: Failure, boring, clichéd drivel.Directing: The movie was very badly directed and it was not even fit for a background noise. The gore and violence was very badly done. Story-line: Non existent. It was very hard to watch the movie and the story-line was boring, clichéd and narration was just as boring, which was accompanied with flashes of violence, which did not contribute to the story at all. If anything, those fist fights were poorly made and timed too. I am all for violent gangster movies and all. But it has to be part of the story and well made. In this movie it was just there for no good reason and it made the movie even more boring as it already was.

Jack Hawkins (Hawkensian) 'Rise of the Footsoldier' is a true-crime gangster film that is both appalling and funny in equal measure. The film charts the criminal career of Carlton Leach, an Essex hardnut who's conditioned by the massive violence of the football terraces before he makes his bones in the criminal underworld.Playing Leach is Ricci Harnett, who gives a suitably obnoxious performance; his face regularly has this fixed expression of arrogance and bad attitude. As Leach gets older and something of a veteran of the Essex underworld, he seems to become so tough and smug that he can barely smile or even speak.The initial phases of the film concentrate on Leach, but towards the end it focuses chiefly on 'The Essex Boys', a moniker referring to Tony Tucker, Pat Tate and Craig Rolfe. Whilst Rolfe was largely just a minion, Tucker and Tate were successful and feared drug dealers, Tucker being some sort of kingpin of South East England.The characters fire various Anglo-Saxon at each other every sentence; they swear so much in fact that it all begins to lose its power somewhat. 'Cunt' is a staple word even in innocuous small talk, where it appears to simply mean 'person' rather than anything derogatory. This isn't really a criticism, the film is depicting the vernacular quite accurately I can imagine; the sheer vulgarity of the film's horrendous characters is actually quite amusing.After a brief exploration of the ecstasy scene of the 1990s and an uninteresting plot of a drug deal gone awry in which there's a lot of torture and cruelty, the film covers the most interesting element of the story - the Rettendon murders in which Tucker, Tate and Rolfe were shot to death in a Land Rover. It's quite comprehensive; it depicts the three different accounts that have been speculated by followers of the controversial event.It also ensures that we understand just how much blood sprayed everywhere on that fateful December evening. Indeed, throughout film the camera seems to relish the violence on screen, zooming right in on people being tortured with various instruments and headbuttings that spatter stupid amounts of corn syrup everywhere. While some of it is appropriately grisly and stark, like violence should be in a crime film that takes itself seriously, a lot of it borders on being comically gratuitous.While 'Rise of the Footsoldier' is entertaining, it is by no means a film that forces you to take it seriously. It features some competent acting, however the film fails because the whole thing is largely bereft of pathos or insight, it's just a load of cockneys with dodgy wigs swearing and leering with frequent outbursts of syrupy violence that seldom convinces. While it is clichéd and rehashed, its main problem may be that the subject matter just isn't worth adapting for the screen. Judging by the continuing and seemingly endless stream of films based around the blasted 'Essex Boys', it appears that the lower echelons of the British film industry still haven't considered such an idea.As a film to watch with friends for a laugh, it's quite good, but if you're expecting a new 'The Long Good Friday' - forget it.www.hawkensian.com

freemantle_uk There have been three films about the Rettendon Murders and the rise of Essex gangsters, Rise of the Footsoldier, Essex Boys and Bonded by Bond. Rise of the Footsoldier is considered the best of the trio, even though there is a big divide between critics and audiences.Carlton Leach (Ricci Harnett) is a football hooligan for West Ham's firm, the I.C.F. who becomes a bouncer. In the mid 80s he slowly rises, forming a business of thuggery, offering protection for clubs, drug dealers, torturing people, doing drugs runs and dealing ecstasy during the rise of the rave scene. But slowly as Carlton becomes more involved into violence, crossing Turkish gangster and getting more involved with gangsters and their various conflicts and turf wars.Julian Gilbey is seen as a rising star as a director, making British action films. His first film was an awful student film, Reckoning Day, his first real film Rollin' with the Nines was an improvement, Rise of the Footsoldier again an improvement and his latest film A Lonely Place to Die is seen as his best film so far. At this rate he should be making a Oscar winning classic very soon. With Rise of the Footsoldier he certainly delivers a very fast pace film, there is never a dull moment. Rise of the Footsoldier is a very violence film, being extremely brutal with people getting hit with a variety of weapons, getting tortured and blood flying around all over the play. The early hooligan scenes reminded me of The Football Factory, using hand held cameras, attempting a gritty feel and using a voice-over (though I think The Football Factory is a much better film). I particularly like the beginning about showing Carlton being a gangster and the end showing the shooting and the different scenarios it could have happened. Gilbey does have some stylish moments showing the worst case scenarios if they go to war with the Turkish gangsters, which was particularly well done.Acting wise its passable. There is nothing spectacular from the actors but no one was awful either. A problem is that Rise of the Footsoldier that it relies too much the old British cliché of constant strong swearing, using the f and c word all the time. I would have preferred more characterisation and seem more interaction between the characters, more of their personal lives and how their operations featured besides from the beginning.Rise of the Footsoldier is a decent film and a well directed piece of work.