Yardie

Name: Yardie
Director: Idris Elba
Released: 2018

Idris Elba

2018

Synopsis

Jamaica, 1973. When a young boy witnesses his brother’s assassination, a powerful Don gives him a home. But 10 years later, when he’s sent to London, his past catches up to him.

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Recommendations

80
CineVue
Overall this is a remarkable debut from Elba, and it makes for an engaging, captivating watch.
80
Film Threat
Yardie is a ripping classic gangster tale done right, but that’s only part of the appeal. It goes beyond the narrative into full cultural immersion with music as the window into a time and place.
63
ReelViews
By incorporating a strong Jamaican flavor and infusing the mix with reggae and dance, Elba provides something more interesting than the standard tale of gang warfare and drug deals that forms Yardie’s skeleton. However, although these unique elements form an effective distraction, their ability to captivate wears thin, exposing the threadbare, overfamiliar story that struggles mightily to keep viewers engaged.
63
Washington Post
It’s all kiss-kiss, bang-bang and backstabbing, with a twist that, while effective, leads to a denouement of questionable — and not entirely satisfying — moral reckoning. In some ways, Yardie plays out like a film noir, but with a strangely sweet ending, and without that genre’s deliciously bitter aftertaste.
60
The Guardian
A debut of unarguable promise, though – plenty to build on if Elba can resist the adolescent lure of running round with 007’s PPK.
60
Empire
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.
50
Los Angeles Times
Elba brings care to the film’s performances, period look and musical elements. But the freeze frames, needless voice-over bits and stalled narrative momentum undercut the picture’s potential power and uniqueness.
40
The Observer (UK)
An over-explanatory voiceover seems to indicate a lack of confidence in the script’s jumbled plotting and laggy pacing. The performances aren’t bad (Ameen’s charisma eclipses the expositional dialogue), but the stakes feel low and the characters gangster-movie generic.