Rise of the Footsoldier

Rise of the Footsoldier

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Julian Gilbey
Written by Julian Gilbey & Mike Hawk
Starring Ricci Harnett
Craig Fairbrass
Roland Manookian
Terry Stone
Coralie Rose
Distributed by Optimum Releasing
Release dates
7 September 2007
Running time
113 minutes
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Box office £220,868[1]

Rise of the Footsoldier is a British crime film released on 7 September 2007. The third production from BAFTA Award-nominated director Julian Gilbey, it is a gangster film based on the true story of the 1995 Rettendon murders and the autobiography of Carlton Leach,[2] a football hooligan of the infamous Inter City Firm (ICF) who became a powerful figure of the English underworld.[3][4]

Main cast

Evaluation in film guides

TimeOut Film Guide (2011 edition) reviewer David Jenkinson describes Rise of the Footsoldier as "a repugnant gangland romp in which ruffians get tooled up with axe handles, baseball bats and Stanley knives then knock ten bells out of each other for two hours." After a one-sentence overview, the review concludes that "Leach is then unceremoniously swept aside as the film hastily attempts to give the Rettendon Range Rover murders a once-over in the scrappy second half."

In America, Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever also disliked it, throwing the film one bone (out of possible four) and dismissing it as "Brit crime flick, based on a true story, that has nothing going for it but violence". Indicating that "Carlton Leach goes from football hooligan in the 1980s to criminal muscle and gangster in the 1990s", the write-up ends with mention of "three murdered drug dealers who were found in rural Essex".

Similar films

The films Essex Boys (2000), Bonded by Blood (2010), The Fall of the Essex Boys (2013) and Essex Boys: Retribution (2013) are also based – to varying degrees – on the Rettendon murders.

A sequel, Rise of the Footsoldier: Part 2 (2015), was released in December 2015.[5]

References

  1. http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/intl/?page=&id=_fRISEOFTHEFOOTSOL01
  2. Leach, Carlton (2003). Muscle. Blake Publishing. ISBN 978-1-904034-48-3
  3. Chambers, Catherine (2 September 2007). "Rise of the Footsoldier". BBC Online. Retrieved 18 September 2014.
  4. Gritten, David (7 September 2007). "Rise of the Footsoldier". Telegraph Online. Retrieved 18 September 2014.
  5. Rise of the Footsoldier: Part 2 IMDB Page, Retrieved March 16 2016.

External links

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