Review: Rise of the Foot Soldier

The latest addition to the British gangster genre has hit local big screens. Whilst most recent examples have been fast paced, light hearted popcorn movies in the style of Guy Ritchie’s work, Rise of the Foot Soldier takes a different approach in depicting the London underworld, namely non stop, in your face violence.

Based on real life events, it charts the rise of the notorious Carlton Leach: from football hooligan extraordinaire to the lofty heights of being the most feared figure in England’s criminal fraternity until his ultimate fall after three decades of chaos and brutality. In essence, it’s trying really hard to be the British Goodfellas (one of my favourite movies of all time) both narratively and stylistically. Sad to say, it fails at almost every turn.

The major problem is the treatment of the characters. A rogue’s gallery of stereotype cockney hard nuts are assembled and then let loose on celluloid with scant rhyme or reason. Events are more interested in highlighting the bloody realities of the gangland existence than they are piecing together an interesting story or providing any insight into the nature of the actions. If this is the purpose of the film, why not just make a documentary with a few ultra-violent recreations? Several cast members are well-noted onscreen tough guys from British TV and they lend their roles an air of authenticity. Yet even they can’t make their characters sympathetic or likable, despite the director’s best efforts to manipulate the audience perspective in that direction.

I am a big fan of gangster movies so I will admit that the gorier scenes did satiate my cinematic blood lust. However, my fan boy of the genre also made the shortcomings of every other element painfully transparent. When you’re working in a branch of a film with so many recognised classics, a weak entry is going to have its flaws magnified many times over. This goes double for efforts that just ape a superior piece of work, and all the blood, swearing and female nudity in the world ain’t changing that unless you’re a total rube for cockney thugs.