Rise of the Footsoldier


Rise of the Footsoldier is a British crime film released on 7 September 2007. The third production from BAFTA Award-nominated director Julian Gilbey, it is based on the true story of the 1995 Rettendon murders and the autobiography of Carlton Leach, a football hooligan of the infamous Inter City Firm who became a powerful figure of the English underworld.

Main cast

TimeOut Film Guide reviewer David Jenkinson describes Rise of the Footsoldier as "a repugnant gangland romp in which ruffians get tooled up with axe handles, baseball bats and Stanley knives then knock ten bells out of each other for two hours." After a one-sentence overview, the review concludes that "Leach is then unceremoniously swept aside as the film hastily attempts to give the Rettendon Range Rover murders a once-over in the scrappy second half."
In America, Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever also disliked it, throwing the film one bone and dismissing it as "Brit crime flick, based on a true story, that has nothing going for it but violence". Indicating that "Carlton Leach goes from football hooligan in the 1980s to criminal muscle and gangster in the 1990s", the write-up ends with mention of "three murdered drug dealers who were found in rural Essex".

Sequels

A sequel, Rise of the Footsoldier: Part 2, was released in December 2013. A prequel titled Rise of the Footsoldier 3 was released in 2017. The fourth part is 2019's Rise Of The Footsoldier 4: Marbella.
YearTitleRelease PlatformGross Sales
2007Rise of the FootsoldierCinema Release
2013Rise of the Footsoldier: Part 2Direct-to-DVD
2017Rise of the Footsoldier 3Direct-to-DVD
2019Rise Of The Footsoldier 4: MarbellaDirect-to-DVD