Idris Elba’s Yardie Starts A ‘War’ In First Trailer

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Idris Elba is no stranger to crime in the suburbs with Luther, The Wire. The British actor has always been on the right side of the law but for Yardie, things are changing.

For his directorial debut feature him the wrong side of the law as he’s starting a ‘war’. Studiocanal has now released the first (UK) Trailer as the streets of Hackney erupt in gang warfare.

It’s no easy feat trying to push your directorial debut, even established actors like Elba struggled. Once he got the thumbs up, anarchy nearly erupted last summer when he did a call for extras via social media.

The film is a passion project of Elba’s, based on a book by Victor Headley of the same name. Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals both praised the film. Could it now be heading to Glasgow Film Festival? Could it be its surprise film?

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).

Yardie doesn’t have an official UK and Irish release date confirmed yet, apart from 2018.