Dennis (Aml Ameen) watches his father (Everaldo Creary) get gunned down in Kingston while holding a block party attempting to stop a gang war. Years later Dennis works for King Fox (Sheldon Shepherd) as a drug dealer in London. Dennis is still after vengeance, not allowing his father's spirit to rest until it is done.

It was a decent drama and might have ranked higher if I understood what they were saying half the time. My copy could have used subtitles, mon. Aml Ameen gives a good performance.

Guide: F-word. Sex. No nudity

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

In Jamaica in the early 1970s, the older brother of Dennis (Aml Ameen) is murdered in a spate of gang warfare. He falls under the wing of King Fox (Sheldon Shepherd),a record producer who runs a side line in drugs. Eventually, he entrusts Dennis to courier a package of cocaine over to England, into the possession of drug kingpin Rico (Stephen Graham),which goes awry, sending him into a dangerous spiral of retribution that threatens to engulf Yvonne (Shantol Jackson),his reacquainted love and the mother of his child, before King Fox's arrival in England, and Dennis's own culminative revenge.

After becoming quite a prominent face on-screen, Idris Alba has decided to retreat behind the camera for a bit with this, his feature length debut after directing two minor TV credits. Adapted from a novel by Victor Headley, he appears to have given it a very personal touch, in what he seems to have taken as a very relatable tale. But the end product is nothing more than a passable, easily forgettable effort, not awful in any sense of the word, but one that fails to be the dynamite tale it possibly could have been.

While Alba has captured the Jamaican patois and street slang impressively accurately, he fails to really get under the skin of the brutal 'yardie' sub-culture, and really bring to life this most negative aspect of Caribbean immigration. Performances wise, Graham as the coke addled drug lord is probably the most high profile cast member, and he is definitely capable of great work, but this really isn't a great example of it, here a hammy villain who's always smoking and swaggering about in colourful shirts and overcoats, although Ameen does command presence in the lead role.

For those fond of underground reggae or even more mainstream stuff from the time the film is set in, it's definitely a bonus that some of the beats are bang tidy. Otherwise, you're left with a serviceable but disappointing tale, that is fused with subplots and sub-characters, but fails to make it all gel into a really satisfying whole. ***

'Yardie (2018)' is a decent directorial debut that's confidently constructed and only comes up short, technically speaking, in a couple of key but ultimately kind of minor areas. The most impactful of these is its heavy-handed, tell-not-show narration that feels utterly unnecessary and only serves to reduce audience connection. A much, much smaller thing that also bugs me is the strange font choice that doesn't feel cohesive with the style otherwise presented. Of course, the latter of these problems has a lot less baring on the flick's quality than the former, but I still noticed it and it got to me. Anyway, the film picks up the pace after a slow start to become an entertaining and, at times, emotionally tense experience that takes some bold steps towards its finale. Unfortunately, it backtracks upon them somewhat, compromising upon what could've been an amazingly ambiguous ending to instead deliver a decisive yet admittedly quite dark and somewhat daring finish. A key character's arc is also sort of left incomplete, though this is by design and is, again, quite a brave choice even if it isn't necessarily all that satisfying. All of this culminates in a solid effort that doesn't really stick in your mind as much as you'd hope, instead playing out as a perfectly entertaining experience in the moment - despite the occasionally experience-breaking occurrence - but drifting from your mind pretty quickly after the credits have rolled. This is mainly because it doesn't feel, in retrospect, as though there's all that much going on in terms of narrative (as opposed to just plot),character and theme. 6/10