Yardie

Released Mar 15, 2019

1 hr. 42 min.

Crime

Drama

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List

54%

76 Reviews

Tomatometer

52%

100+ Ratings

Audience Score

A man's quest for retribution brings him into conflict with a vicious London gangster.

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Critics Consensus

Yardie proves debuting director Idris Elba has a distinctive eye that benefits from a strong personal connection to his material, even if the end results are somewhat uneven.

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Elixir G

Honestly Idris did a great job as his first time behind the camera even though the story was predictable.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

04/26/23

Full Review

Audience Member

THIS WAS REAL, IF YOU HAD AN EXPOSURE TO THE CARRIBEAN COMMUNITY AND IF YOU HAD AN EXPOSURE TO DEALING WITH RUDE BWOYS, YOU WOULD KNOW THIS MOVIE WAS A SINCERE TRIBUTE. NOTHING WAS FALSE ABOUT THIS AT ALL... USUALLY A DEPICTION OF A COMMUNITY IN THE MEDIA ENDS UP BEING AN INSULT, BUT THE MOVIE YARDIE WAS A COMPLEMENT TO THE COMMUNITY.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/28/23

Full Review

Audience Member

A young boy known as 'D' is growing up in 1970's Kingston when he sees his older brother gunned down while trying to bring peace to two warring gangs that have brought terror to the streets. This leads him onto a path where he finds himself working for Kingston gangster King Fox who soon despatches him to London to broker a deal with a vicious London gangster known as Rico. However, when he encounters the man who shot his brother ten years earlier things soon spiral out of control and D finds himself on the run from everyone after the deal goes south and secrets are revealed about who was really behind the shooting. Yardie is a decent portrayal of a young innocent's decent into darkness who is very much a product of his surroundings and the people he calls family. The film is Idris Elba's directorial debut and I felt he did a very good job at briniging some unique characters to the screen. The only character that did feel a little out of place was Stephen Graham as vicious London gangster Rico. Stephen Graham is more than a decent choice of villain but why have him with a really dodgy Jamaican accent? It's not the worse accent I have ever heard but the scouse does slip through occasionally and it would have been much better to have him play a Londoner, seemed like a very odd choice. Apart from that, it was an enjoyable crime thriller.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/20/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I do love me some Idris. I did not care for this. I wanted to like it, but it didn’t really make any sense. I will admit I don’t know a lot about my Jamaican culture. Maybe there is some type of big connection between sounds and drug dealing but the movie failed to make it make any sense. It just failed to make any of the story really flow at all. While I also am no expert in the way Jamaicans speak, it seem the actors were over doing it a bit. Overacting quite a lot.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

04/01/20

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charlie l

It's deeply flawed narratively.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

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Audience Member

This is flamboyant, colourful stuff. It's style over substance, with little social or political context. You need a major pinch of salt, as thugs roam the streets with guns and machetes. And there's not a strong female character to be seen. With the humour and violence sit uncomfortably together. So the film doesn't work, but for all that is an entertaining ride.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

01/21/23

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Idris Elba

Director

Aml Ameen

D.

Stephen Graham

Rico

Shantol Jackson

Yvonne

Mark Rhino Smith

Raggz

Fraser James

Piper

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Yardie: Trailer 1

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Yardie: Teaser Trailer 1

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Peter Rainer

FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)

Fairly routine... I wish the ethnic aspects of this film had come to the fore more and that they had played down the druggie stuff that we had already seen a million times.

Sep 24, 2019

Full Review

Yolanda Machado

TheWrap

The acting is decent, the cinematography is well executed, and the music is on point, but the delivery and the tone are completely mismatched.

Mar 15, 2019

Full Review

Michael O'Sullivan

Washington Post

What sets Elba's movie apart is the distinctive world he creates, in the rhythm of the music, in the raw, gritty poetry of the language, and in the powerful mythology it mines.

Rated: 2.5/4

Mar 15, 2019

Full Review

Charlotte Harrison

VultureHound

Tonally uneven, too slow at some points and too speedy at others; it makes for an okay, if rather forgettable watch.

Rated: 2/5

Jan 28, 2020

Full Review

Katie Smith-Wong

Flick Feast

[Idris] Elba isn't afraid to keep it real when it comes to visualising D's slow descent to darkness, transitioning from colourful Kingston to run-down, gritty London.

Rated: 3/5

Nov 11, 2019

Full Review

Jaime Davis

MovieJawn

I may not be rushing to watch Yardie again but I will be tuning to this soundtrack again and again.

Sep 17, 2019

Full Review

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Synopsis

A man's quest for retribution brings him into conflict with a vicious London gangster.

Director: Idris Elba
Executive Producer: Mary Burke, Hugo Heppell, Dan MacRae, Joe Oppenheimer, Danny Perkins
Screenwriter: Martin Stellman, Brock Norman Brock
Distributor: Rialto Pictures
Production Co: Warp Films, BFI Film Fund
Genre: Crime, Drama
Original Language: English (United Kingdom)
Release Date (Theaters): Mar 15, 2019, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): May 16, 2019
Box Office (Gross USA): $35.6K
Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)

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