Gangst

Idris Elba’s directorial debut follows a young man who is a law unto himself

strapped to his leg after an attempted drug deal ends in a lot of stamping, smashing and bleeding.

D is haunted by seeing his peace-loving big brother murdered at the soundclash, and both his grief and his knack for finding an illegal sideline follow him to grey, sodden London.

D faces off with twitchy, coke-shovelling kingpin Rico (Stephen Graham, switching between East End gangster and Jamaican patois as if he weren’t the world’s Scousest man) and his goons while trying to reconnect with an estranged wife and child and avenge his brother. D adopts a rag-tag urchin soundclash crew in London, keeping everything tied together with an extremely banging soundtrack — Grace Jones, Black Uhuru, Lord Creator included — which provides most of the texture.

Yardie got a few sniffy reviews after its Sundance showing earlier this year, and it does meander at times, but it’s still a really heartfelt attempt to freshen up the old gangster-revenge flick. It weaves a recent migrant’s sense of dislocation and cultural pride throughout, and while it could do with a bit of

Elba’s magnetism in front of the camera, there are enough vivid flourishes — especially in Jamaica and in London’s neon-lit basement clubs — to make Yardie a party worth dropping by.

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Yardie is out on 24 August

Parties on film never look like the kinds of parties you’d ever want to attend. TheGreat Gatsby ? Bit too My Super Sweet 16. The Wolf ofWall Street ? You’d never get a word in. The dusty, heatstruck guerrilla sound-clash at the start of Idris Elba’s directorial debut featureYardie, though — dub and reggae bringing together feuding Jamaican gangs on a hot night — looks and sounds absolutely brilliant. That’s until a gunshot from the crowd shatters the vibes.Yardie, an adaptation of Victor Headley’s 1992 book which became a word-ofmouth sensation, follows drug-runner D (a wirily intense Aml Ameen), who’s sent packing from Kingston in 1983 with a kilo of cocaineBelow, the Yardie gang: Aml Ameen and director Idris Elba on location in Jamaica and London