02/09/07 - RISE OF THE FOOTSOLDIER
Director: Julian Gilbey Running time: 119 minutes
Scotland on Sunday

THE success of Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels has spawned a mini-industry of London gangster movies, most of which rely on the calculation that screen violence is an end in itself. In recent months, both Straightheads and Sugarhouse have disproved this notion, though both films had a kernel of a good idea which was overwhelmed by the desperate need of their directors to ramp up the aggravation.

Rise Of The Footsoldier is a more straightforwardly cynical exercise, based on Muscle, the autobiography of East End criminal Carlton Leach. Leach certainly had an interesting life, if not an admirable one, doing his apprenticeship as a "general" in West Ham's ICF hooligan gang, bouncing for Essex nightclubs, and moving through the rave scene to various levels of drug-dealing, violence and general acts of menace.

His criminal career ended when three of his associates were murdered by rivals in their Range Rover in Rettendon, Essex, in 1995. In the hands of Scorsese, it's possible that the tragedy of Leach's life would measure up to its empty swagger, but Julian Gilbey gets stuck somewhere between The Sweeney and Death Wish.

The film is a showreel of violence. The director does have an aptitude for capturing the rushing energy of a fight, but he has little interest in character, motive, or indeed anything apart from blood and thunder. The kickings are accompanied by a plodding voiceover from Leach (Ricci Hartnett) which is strong on self-mythology but light on insight ("In my world, kindness is mistaken for weakness"; "And so it went on. Match day. Arsenal away.").

Things get worse when Leach graduates from hooliganism to security at raves, where - in a scene which is, we may assume, supposed to be funny - he ingests an ecstasy tablet. This provokes an odd moment of insight: "The drugs were breaking down social barriers. Peace by ecstasy. Even old Thatcher couldn't have dreamed that one up."

Thanks for that, Carlton. Your sociology degree is in the post. Anyway, he doesn't stay loved up for long. Soon he's munching bodybuilding supplements, turning psychotic, and doing battle with the Turkish mafia while wearing a leather blouson. To be fair, Hartnett has real presence, and adds weight in the manner of De Niro in Raging Bull.

Terry Stone does a fine turn as the toupee-wearing Tony Tucker ("a pint of your finest Champagne!"). The script is weak, but Carlton does have one good line: "It ain't a good idea to go out drinking on an empty head." The same goes for filmmaking.