Yardie

Brought up in an almost tribally violent Kingston in the 1970s, the young "D" (Antwayne Eccleston) is witness to the brutal murder of his brother "Jerry" but luckily adopted by the local kingpin "Fox" (Sheldon Shepherd) who ends up sending him to London. It's here that he rendezvous with his ex-girlfriend "Yvonne" (Shantol Jackson) who fled some years earlier with their son - whom he hasn't seen since. He lands on his feet, rather, falling into the company of a band of musicians but before he can embark on a career with them, he encounters the man who slaughtered his brother a decade earlier. A red mist descends on "D" (now Aml Ameen) and no persuasion or pleading can divert him from a dangerous course of revenge that is setting a course for a clash with the ruthless "Rico" (Stephen Graham). As the violence escalates and his behaviour puts not just him, but his family and friends in deadly peril, we build to a denouement that turns their London streets back into a section of the lawless Jamaica they had left. This is clearly a labour of love for director Idris Elba and for a while it works quite well. There's plenty of convincing patois and the story illustrates well their sense of community and loyalty. Pretty quickly, though, the wheels begin to come off and the whole thing descends into a rather procedural crime drama that resorts just a little too much to stereotype and puts Stephen Graham in the most unlikely of characterisations. It's violent, but not especially gratuitous and the writing does take a swipe at the futility of the never ending cycle of revenge begetting more revenge - but once we get into the thrust of the thing it is derivative and unimaginatively developed until a conclusion that you could have seen from space. The acting - especially from Ameen - isn't bad at all and it's by no means a bad film, but if you'd brought on Helen Mirren it could easily have been better made into a two part "Prime Suspect" drama.