CERTIFICATE DIRECTORHenryBlakeSTARRINGHarrisDickinsonConrad
KhanAshleyMadekweSCREENPLAYHenryBlakeDISTRIBUTORBFI
RUNNING TIMEminsCOUNTY LINES
WHY DON’T
YOU JUST DIE!
Taken for a mule...
Torn apart(ment)...
CERTIFICATE DIRECTORKirillSokolovSTARRINGAleksandrKuznetsov
VitaliyKhaevEvgeniyaKregzhdeMichaelGorElenaShevchenkoSCREENPLAY
KirillSokolovDISTRIBUTORArrowFilmsRUNNING TIMEminsruns.) Yet Blake’s film also
succeeds as a powerful piece of
drama, one that reaches an
excruciating apex of despair at
the point when Tyler is attacked,
robbed and left for dead on
desolate Canvey Island. Khan
is mesmerising as the young
protagonist, a good kid gone
wrong whose impassive features
hide reservoirs of brutalisation
and hurt. And if Dickinson is
a little too prepossessing to
convince as his predatory
seducer, he still deserves praise
for taking on such a thoroughly
unsavoury character. Neil Smithand you’re halfway to picturing
the film’s jaw-dropping narrative
and visual excess.
One would hope that the
corruption and greed on display
aren’t an accurate reflection of
Sokolov’s homeland. That said,
depending on your tolerance for
power-tool torture, Matvey’s
refusal to give up no matter
what’s thrown at him makes for
a droll satire of Russian stoicism.
With his hangdog features and
deadpan expression, Kuznetsov
is less Buster Keaton than Busted
Keaton. Simon KinnearBanished from school and
bullied on the streets, 14-year-
old Tyler (Conrad Khan) is an
easy mark for smoothly
insinuating “entrepreneur”
Simon (Harris Dickinson) and
his promises of lucrative
employment. Once inside a
criminal network, however, Tyler
finds it impossible to get out.
Through no fault of his own, he
also incurs spiralling debts that
endanger not just him but also
his mother (Ashley Madekwe)
and younger sister (Tabitha
Milne-Price).
With the dispassion of a
documentary, County Lines shows
us how exploitation works from
the inside. (Youths like Tyler, we
learn from a sympathetic social
worker, are an “acceptable loss”
to the kind of business SimonKirill Sokolov’s debut is the
kind of full-blooded (in every
sense) Russian crowd-pleaser not
seen since Timur Bekmambetov’s
(Night Watch) heyday. It’s a
boisterous, cartoonish black
comedy in which Matvey and
bull-headed cop Andrey (Vitaliy
Khaev) go at each other with fists,
shotguns and TV sets. And that’s
just the pre-credit sequence.
Set largely in a single
apartment whose gore-streaked
walls increasingly resemble an
abattoir, with a few strategically
placed flashbacks to explain
what’s going on, there’s a
definite Reservoir Dogs vibe to
Sokolov’s film. Yet his reference
points are more gonzo. Imagine
Guy Ritchie’s jaunty sense of
farce allied to Nicolas Winding
Refn’s artisanal ultra-violenceN
etflix’s recent revival of Top Boy arguably cast a spurious
sheen of glamour over London’s drugs gangs. Writer/
director Henry Blake shows the grittier, grubbier reality
in County Lines, in which a vulnerable East London teen
is groomed by a dealer, recruited as a mule and sent to traffic
heroin in the bleakest recesses of Essex.A
vigilante wearing a Batman hoodie and carrying a
hammer pauses at the doorway of his intended
victim. As well he might, for once he’s crossed the
threshold, Matvey (Alexsandr Kuznetsov) is in for
a world of pain...THE VERDICT
Compelling, grim and
heartbreaking, Blake’s feature
debut is a salutary wake-up call.THE VERDICT
Sokolov’s brutal slapstick is
consistently funny and
ferocious, finding new ways to
make you wince with laughter.Mirrormirroronthewall
who’s thebloodiestof’emall?Thisbrutalfilmshows
therealityofyouth
exploitationOUT 17 APRIL
OUT 20 APRIL DIGITAL HD/BD
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GAMESRADARCOM/TOTALFILM APRIL 2020 | TOTAL FILM