*Originally written September 12th, 2018*
This is a hard one to talk about, part of me was really interested to see how Idris Elba would hold up as a director and to my memory, I don't think I've ever seen a crime film based entirely within Jamaican culture. There is so much potential here that is sadly wasted with Elba's muddled direction and just plainly generic storytelling.
This is looking to be one of the most forgettable films of the year. The story is one just so generic and plain. A boy goes into the life of crime after seeing his brother assassinated and ends up in a decade long journey before avenging him. It borrows a lot from much better films, there's a slice of Goodfellas in there, a pinch of City of God and then the ugly feeling of a bunch of straight to DVD Danny Dyer crime thrillers.
Things start of fine, it's a little rushed, they try and pack a lot into the brisk 100 minutes run-time. D's (Aml Ameen) arc is very quick to get going. There really could have been a lot more build up and maybe exploring the relationship between him and his older brother before his death. It could have gone a long way to make us care more about his journey of revenge.
I really would like to rewatch this with subtitles too, there are a few moments where I just didn't understand what the hell the characters said. This is due to the strong Jamaican accents, which is not the film's fault at all, I just personally wished I watched it with subtitles, like I do with every film at home.
Elba just has a hard time making all these come coherently together. There's a tacked on romance that is extremely forced and moments of tension that go absolutely nowhere. It's incredibly disappointing that an actor with this much charisma is such a plain director. Some of the visuals in Jamaica look gorgeous, but once things hit London, it feels like one of those cheap straight to video cockney crime thrillers. It is gross. I hope Elba continues to improve as a director, because this is not a good start at all.
The most interesting part of Yardie is the absolutely bat-shit insane performance from Stephen Graham, his performance is so over the top and silly, it feels so tonally out of place in this. He's tries to be a coked up Scarface like figure that swaps between a thick Jamaican accent or a British one. I just couldn't figure out if it was intentional or not. It was bizarre, but the most I was entertained by the film, so that's something.
Things come to a very muddled and quick conclusion, to the point I thought there was more, but it just ends? It all just felt very rushed and none of the emotional moments are earned. A character dies towards the end and the lead character is emotionally screaming and I was just thinking "Were we meant to give a shit about a character we'd only seen about twice?".
Yardie clearly has good intentions from Elba behind the camera, but the end result is something that felt more likely to land with no fanfare on Netflix as an original rather than a cinema release. A messy time all round. A complete waste of a different side of culture we rarely see in cinema.
4/10 Dans
Yardie is out now in cinemas in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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Letterboxd: Dan
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