Yardie

“You either go with the right­eous, or you go with the damned,” is one of the pearls of inscrutable wis­dom in Idris Elba’s feisty direc­to­r­i­al debut, Yardie. It’s evi­dent what path the film’s cen­tral pro­tag­o­nist, Den­nis (Aml Ameen), is liable to go on, and rel­a­tive­ly few sur­pris­es are thrown up con­cern­ing the crim­i­nal under­world into which he is dragged. Elba’s film, a par­tial adap­ta­tion of Vic­tor Headley’s cult 1992 nov­el, is an enjoy­able, by-the-num­bers crime dra­ma, notable for its depic­tion of a por­tion of black British life too often unseen by cin­e­ma audi­ences. Its evoca­tive sound­track is also worth men­tion­ing, as it fea­tures a wide vari­ety of reg­gae deep cuts.

Yardie opens in West Kingston, Jamaica in 1973, offer­ing a voiceover to map out the var­i­ous gang rival­ries in the city at that time. Elba presents us with an island nation both vibrant with nat­ur­al beau­ty and fraught with ter­ri­ble dan­ger. Den­nis, or ​‘D’, is a young man raised against a back­drop of vio­lence and is coached in crim­i­nal­i­ty by a local king­pin known as King Fox (Shel­don Shep­erd). But this was not always the case: as a young boy, he had been utter­ly in thrall to his charis­mat­ic old­er broth­er Jer­ry Dread, who was shot down in front of him while DJing at a par­ty intend­ed to bring togeth­er two rival Jamaican gangs.

A decade lat­er, D finds him­self dis­patched to Lon­don with a large amount of cocaine to sell on behalf of his boss. There, he dis­cov­ers the man who killed his broth­er, and he goes on a mad quest for vengeance. D is also reunit­ed with his estranged wife Yvonne (Shan­tol Jack­son) and young daughter.

His fam­i­ly have trav­elled to Lon­don with­out him in an attempt to make bet­ter lives for them­selves, and as such D is not a total­ly wel­come sight. He even­tu­al­ly courts the wrath of Lon­don boss Rico (Stephen Gra­ham), much to the dis­may of his fam­i­ly. A rogue’s gallery of sup­port­ing play­ers are found a lit­tle want­i­ng in the char­ac­ter stakes, with a coke-addled Gra­ham grotesque­ly crib­bing a Jamaican accent. His weak car­i­ca­ture is one of sev­er­al uneven points in a sto­ry whose pre­dictabil­i­ty is a prob­lem, with a bog-stan­dard revenge plot doing lit­tle to keep things gripping.

Nonethe­less, one of Yardie’s strong points is that it nev­er attempts to over­reach. The film slots firm­ly with­in the para­me­ters of the crime genre, and makes no effort to redeem or soft­en its cen­tral char­ac­ter. Even when D is plac­ing oth­ers at risk, who become some­thing like col­lat­er­al dam­age in his quest for revenge, the film makes no attempt to shy away or pass com­ment on his mis­deeds. Nor does it delve into the machis­mo and destruc­tive pride that makes Den­nis the locus of such vio­lence. This is a vibrant peri­od piece with an eye for the spe­cial city of ear­ly ​’80s Lon­don, with its bleak tow­er blocks, boom­ing dance hall scenes, and ats with wall-to-wall yel­low shag-rug. The Jamaican immi­grant com­mu­ni­ty are clois­tered in their own neigh­bour­hoods, and one of their alter­na­tive economies – the cocaine trade – also flour­ish­es. Yardie does an excel­lent job at cap­tur­ing this exhil­a­rat­ing and sav­age lifestyle, but often falls short when it’s dogged­ly cleav­ing to convention.