From football hooligan to underworld enforcer, Rise of the Footsoldier follows the violent career of Carlton Leach, portrayed here as a huffing, puffing lump of charmless scowl by Casualty fodder Ricci Harnett. An intertitle at the start reassures the audience that what they are about to see is based on a true story, so all the torture, drug use and spittle-spattered use of the word ‘cant’ is made even more arresting by the fact that it, or something like it, might once have sort of happened. That’s the plan at least, and an over-eager soundtrack of punches like gunshots and deafening match flares suggest director Julian Gilbey is going all out to deliver a proper kick in the teeth.
The pitched battles between rival football thugs have been seen before but are shot with energy and relish, and the scene of the West Ham cavalry arriving to rescue Leach and his mates from a Man United kicking trips all sorts of guilty pleasure receptors. The transition to working as a bouncer provides more gore at close quarters, while the move to the rave scene and Leach’s first pill are played for daft laughs. Leach doesn’t have charisma but he does at least provide a narrative thread, so when he steps back from the violence and the story switches to two or three new lumps and their bloody capers the whole derivative tale loses its way and the boredom becomes terminal.
