Based on a famous book and made by the producers of This is England and ’71.
After creating the definitive gangster for the modern era in The Wire, Idris Elba has been on the right side of the law in recent years with roles in Luther, Molly’s Game and Thor to name but a few.
This being said, the talented actor is stepping behind the camera for his feature-length debut and he has picked a beloved novel as his first film to direct.
After being released in 1992, Goodreads described Yardie as “a literary sensation in England. On word of mouth alone, Yardie has sold over twelve thousand copies.”
Set in ’70s Kingston and ’80s Hackney, Yardie centres on the life of a young Jamaican man named D (Aml Ameen), who has never fully recovered from the murder, committed during his childhood, of his older brother Jerry Dread (Everaldo Creary). D grows up under the wing of a Kingston Don and music producer named King Fox (Sheldon Shepherd). Fox dispatches him to London, where he reconnects with his childhood sweetheart, Yvonne (Shantol Jackson), and his daughter who he’s not seen since she was a baby. He also hooks up with a soundclash crew, called High Noon. But before he can be convinced to abandon his life of crime and follow “the righteous path”, he encounters the man who shot his brother 10 years earlier and embarks on a bloody, explosive quest for retribution – a quest which brings him into conflict with vicious London gangster Rico (Stephen Graham).
In their review of the film, Variety said: ” Yardie has the right look, the right sound and the right moves to play with the bigger boys of its genre.”
We’ll see when the film is released.
