The other day (I think), I posted a review of the film The Prom. I discussed my enjoyment of the bravado and happiness. This film is the polar opposite. There are very few people I would recommend both films to. The middle of that venn diagram is empty.

14 year old Ty is living in poverty with his younger sister and dead beat mum. She’s recently lost her job as a cleaner, but even before then, Ty was basically looking after his little sister and almost saw himself as the man of the house. He was a loner, bullied at school regularly, with no role models in his life until one day an adult comes along and stops the bullies picking on him. The adult takes him out and buys him shoes and a meal and offers him a chance to earn money, drug trafficking. One of around 10,000 children who do this in real life, he’s sent of a train to a meth house with the drugs in him and has to stay in this disturbing accomodation. It’s really gritty and difficult to watch.

The second half of the film takes place after a 6 month time jump. We see Ty as the sole provider of the family. His mum knows what he is doing through ignorance. He is the undisputed man of the house. He is violent and angry, both at her and the world. This power shift brings a distance between them as he is slipping at school and is falling further down this rabbit hole of drug trafficking.

The film is really difficult to watch. I was sat at the back of the cinema and that was probably for the better as I was physically flinching at some of the violence and horrible things we had to witness. That’s not to say this isn’t a very good film. It was a realistic look with no romanticism or punches held. The story was told brilliantly and the acting from debutant Conrad Khan was phenomenal. There is a lot going for County Lines which makes it so gripping.

A solid directorial debut, the film wasn’t without its flaws. The style of music and some use of effects felt jarringly out of place. The problem was that the film was so gritty that anything almost any independent British film tries to do with dreamlike scores just wouldn’t work and unfortunately, more often than not, it didn’t. In these occasions, it would take me out of the zone and take a few minutes to get back in there. However, they were rare enough it wouldn’t ruin the film. The film also took a while to get to its peak. The second act was much better than the first. The first wasn’t awful, it just took a while to get there.

The positives around this film far outweighed the negatives. The use of colour was a nice subtle touch. Ty would be regularly shown in red shots giving this anger and almost horror at his reality. His mother on the other hand was regularly associated with blue, showing a cold distance between them. This really was smart direction from debutant Henry Blake as we are left in the precarious balance of hope and permanence.

Summary

County Lines was a brutal, harrowing film about a problem not discussed within our society. Not for the faint hearted, this film about children drug trafficking is an engaging, thought provoking piece brilliantly acted and directed. [Grade: B]

County Lines is currently in cinemas and available to rent as a new release on BFI Player and Curzon Home Cinema.