Absolutely amazing

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

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.

Rise of the footsoldier opens up depicting the life of Carlton Leach. A feared gangster throughout south east London. This story shows his rise to power & dominance of being in a feared Gangster crew and the leader of football hooliganism. Ricci Harnet is far more convincing in his acting & performance than his role as Corporal Mitchell in 28 Days Later. Carlton Leach is shown as a very young man at the opening of the Movie. Ricci Harnet does a good job narrating throughout. Although It's narrating is not (In my opinion) on the level of Pesci & De Niro's narrative skills in Casino, or Ray Liotta in Goodfellas. I must forewarn anyone who is keen on watching this that there is an exceptional level of profanity that is uttered at a constant rate. With 390 F-Words (according to celebrityfword.com) and probably nearly 100 C-Words in 114 minutes, I very strongly advise anybody with sensitivity to filthy language to steer well clear of this film. There are torturous and brutal, violent scenes in this movie. An extremely graphic depiction of drugs including cocaine, anabolic steroids, heroine, & ecstasy. There is one extremely graphic rape scene with drugs implied into the scene. There is sexual activity in a car with bare breasts, & brief scenes of sexual intercourse with both a woman & man completely naked. Penetration is shown. Gory, violent scenes include a quite brutal train fight ignited by football hooliganism between West Ham United & Millwall. A man gets an axe in his head and bleeds severely to the point of near loss of consciousness. He is afterwards seen having the large wound stitched up. There is a hooligan riot with bricks, fire, Molotov's, fists & feet all used as weapons. There is a very disturbing scene were a man is literally nailed into the ground from head to toe. Defenceless & unable to move, is left to suffer horribly & die. His blood is transfered onto a wall used as text which Carlton wrote in red "This is what happens to thieves" There is a Land rover murder shown 2-3 times with a lot of blood. Men are injected with poison and vomit, choke, & die from suffocation. And finally a torture scene where men have the teeth physically ripped out with pliers very hard. Bags are smothered over mens heads, this is probably the most intense torture scene in the whole movie. It is very gritty & tense. Julien Gilbey's definitive best directed film by some long way. It's crazy & relentless, shocking & entertaining. Ultimately it is a British Gangster film that is one of the best MOB films I've ever seen come from England. Don't miss it! I give it a HUGE 9/10! Great movie.

Rise of the Footsoldier is directed by Julian Gilbey who also co-writes the screenplay with Mike Hawk. It stars Ricci Harnett, Kierston Wareing, Craig Fairbrass, Roland Manookian, Terry Stone and Frank Harper. Plot follows the story of one Carlton Leech (sic), how he rose from being a football terrace hooligan to one of Essex's top club-land gangsters, and his involvement in the true-life murder of three drug Barron's in Rettendon, Essex in 1995.I remember writing back in 1994 that there is a market for film's involving football hooligans. This was after the release of a film called I.D., the first, and still the best, film to put the itchy subject on the big screen. Four years later Guy Ritchie would make British gangsters hip, and since then a number of like minded British film's about hooligans, thugs, convicts and underworld crims have made their merry way to the screen. Some great: Lock Stock, Snatch, Sexy Beast, Football Factory, Layer Cake. Some mediocre: Cass, Revolver, Bronson. And some plain bad: Essex Boys, Bonded by Blood, The Business. What we do know is that whatever the quality, people want to see them, granted some of the viewers might actually be thugs or criminals themselves, getting off on another slice of blood marinated pie, but fact remains that the market remains the same, a number of film watchers enjoy their trips down the dark side of Britain.But here's the question, where do we stop? After Cass, Bronson and now Rise of the Footsoldier, are we to assume that any hard man geezer can get a film made about him? Lets face it, we are not talking about Peter Sutcliffe or Dennis Nielson here. You sense that director Julian Gilbey realised this and made a film with two dovetailing stories, one about a hard man working his way thru the ranks of the underworld, the other about what might have led to three drug Barron big boys getting blasted to shotgun death one night in a dark country lane. Smart move, it gives his film an edge over other recent one dimensional film's of its ilk.The top British film magazines have been savage on Rise of the Footsoldier, their critics clearly growing tired of having to sit thru yet another British thug movie. Yet although it clearly isn't the British Goodfella's; as one over keen DVD advertising executive called it, it's still a brutal and savage piece of film making aimed at a particular audience, who, it has to be said, will find tremendous amounts of things to enjoy about it. In many ways it's an ambitious attempt by Gilbey, threading the two stories together is a good move, and largely it works; tho fans of football hooliganism film's should note that this only fills the first ten minutes of the film. He's also tries to make his characters less psychotic than their crimes suggest they are, that doesn't work, but it's top marks for trying. Thus I disagree with those who have poured scorn on it as a piece of "thug porn", a film glorifying the bad seed that festers in society. Gilbey set out to shock, clearly, the subject matter calls for it, but he at least told a good story in the process and didn't shirk the big moments either.Where it sits in the pantheon of Brit thug movies is to my mind quite high, because I found it riveting, nasty and often uneasy to sit thru. That has to be job done, no? Cast are mostly OK, with some of them familiar faces from other previous ne'er do well portrayals, and the snap-shot of the times is bright and sound-tracked accordingly. It's not a film I could watch with my mother, or even my missus, but the makers wasn't making that sort of film anyway. An acquired taste for sure, but still a tasty treat for those so inclined to the themes cooking in the pot. 8/10

Having had more than a few mates suggest i check Rise of the Footsoldier out, i eventually got round to it last night. Undoubtedly the story Colton Leach has to tell (and did so in his autobiography) is a compelling tale of one mans ascent from Terrace boot boy to connected underworld villain. This film sadly compromised in quality by miscasts, appalling accents and woeful acting.Ricci Harnett in the lead role of Leach does a reasonable job of conveying the transition from thuggery to serious criminal but his accent is all over the place. As his voice provides the stories narration it is something that after ten minutes was driving me nuts. Terry Stone as Tony Tucker provided the unintentional comedy with an ill fitting wig (or the worst Barnett going)dialogue that was so expletive riddled it bordered on juvenile and an over the top vehemence in line delivery reducing Tucker to parody.What troubled me most about this film was that the events leading up to the shooting in Rettenden, Essex and the formative years of Leach are of genuine interest to crime fans and fans of football hooliganism so, to have this story sabotaged by a lack of credible accents and acting left me feeling an opportunity had been missed. Roland Manookian and Frank Harper provide the films only source of authenticity. On the positive side some of the films pacing and construct flowed well and kept the attention. The violence was well choreographed and aside from an over reliance on projectile red syrup for blood spatterings was on the whole realistic. If you enjoyed the film then it is worth checking out Essex Boys telling a similar tale from fictionalised viewpoint and also featuring Billy Murray.