Rise of the Footsoldier

Carlton Leach starts as a football hooligan in the seventies, works club doors in the eighties and moves into the drug trade in the nineties. The story ends in 1995 with three men shot in a car on a farm track in Essex. Julian Gilbey directed. Ricci Harnett plays Leach, with Craig Fairbrass and Terry Stone as the men around him. The source is Leach's own account; the Rettendon murders at the centre are real and the question of who did it is still argued. The film never softens the violence, which caused argument in Britain, with critics saying it glorified criminals. The three periods are given three different styles; the hooligan section is close to documentary and everything after it grows darker. Despite a small budget it did large business on video and grew over the years into a series with several sequels. Who it is for: viewers who like British crime cinema and hard accounts based on real events. Who it is not for: anyone with no tolerance for graphic violence; the film never lets up on it.