‘I knew the guy who killed Tony could still be out there and every day the anger got worse...’
Everything about this project should result in a film that is terrible. You may think that we said all we needed to say with the first Rise of the Footsoldier. You may also ask yourself whether a sequel is workable when most of the characters from the original film are dead. You may also ask yourself whether Rise of the Footsoldier: Part II can ever justify being almost two hours long. I’m here to tell you, dear reader, that despite all of this, I found myself being swept along with this sequel in much the same way as I was with the source material…
Carlton Leach (Ricci Hartnett) is back. Acid house is dead. Cocaine is the new ecstasy (he can smell it seeping out of people’s pores apparently). Essex is as violent and ridiculous as ever. We follow Leach as he snorts, shags and shanks his way across South London picking up as many gangster cliches on the way as is possible to cram into one film.
Hartnett, who writes and directs and also serves as the leading man, wisely chooses to cloak much of the violence in darkness to avoid exposing the presumably tiny budget. The dialogue veers between wildly misogynistic and utterly facile but it is also strangely satisfying in its predictability. There are no surprises here. Everything you’d expect from Rise of the Footsoldier: Part II is present and correct.
As the credits rolled on this most unlikely of franchise starters I couldn’t help but reflect on what I’d gained from the experience. Whilst the answer appears to be a resounding ‘nothing’, there is also absolutely no doubt in my mind that I will be firing up the next film in the franchise sometime soon.