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Yardie (15)

Drama, Crime

British drama set in the 1980s, in which a Jamaican man is tasked with delivering a drug shipment to London.


The critical consensus

Neither a luridly enjoyable piece of Scarface-style pulp or a nuanced genre subversion, Idris Elba’s directorial debut is a fitfully entertaining 1980s gangster thriller.

***(*)(*)Jimi Famurewa, Empire Online, 28/08/2018

Promising but emotionally unsatisfying directorial debut from Idris Elba, focusing on the Jamaican gang scene.

***(*)(*)James Mottram, The List, 27/08/2018

A fresh look at an ’80s immigrant community from Jamaica to London, but patchy and predictable.

***(*)(*)Christina Newland, Little White Lies, 30/08/2018

Its plot is riddled with holes. However, taken as modern-day folklore – as a music-driven cautionary tale about a young Jamaican rake’s progress – it is an invigorating ride.

***(*)(*)Geoffrey Macnab, The Independent, 31/08/2018

For his directorial debut, Elba mixes cliche and social complexity in this adaptation of Victor Headley’s novel about a young Jamaican in 80s Hackney.

***(*)(*)Mike McCahill, The Guardian, 29/08/2018

The plot, in truth, doesn’t make much sense, a problem separate from Elba’s boldest creative choice: an admirable refusal to soften the Jamaican patois of the characters.

**(*)(*)(*)Alistair Harkness, The Scotsman, 30/08/2018


Features about Yardie (15)

Yardie and the complexity of black crime cinema.

Nick Hasted, The Independent, 31/08/2018

Where and when?

General release. Check local listings for show times.

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