The Rise Of The Foot Soldier
You have to worry about a gangster film featuring potty-mouthed Lahn-dahn geezers that apparently can’t run to the services of Danny Dyer. Never mind. Doing a passable imitation of the great man is Ricci Harnett, who plays Carlton Leech, a football yob whose default emotion appears to be dumb fury.
We first meet the delightful Carlton when he’s running around, slicing people up, as a fully-paid up member of West Ham’s notorious ICF – Inter City Firm. Realising that the era of the terrace hooligan is in extra time, he takes his skills with fists, boots and a blade to the glamorous world of Essex nightclubs.
Women are naffin’ more’n slaags who need a good slap while an individual’s worth is gauged by how ably he can wield a pizza cutter on a restaurant manager’s face. Illuminated by Harnett’s rambling, incoherent and plain silly voiceover, this makes Essex Boys – the Sean Bean outing that dealt with the same subject – look like Goodfellas.