Rent County Lines (2019)

Sensitive, powerful portrayal of a difficult subject - County Lines review by PD

This film, Henry Blake's debut feature, deals with the delicate subject of how an introverted 14-year-old boy is lured all too easily into the world of county lines drug trafficking.

Harris Dickinson and Ashley Madekwe both cede the spotlight to young lead Conrad Khan, who delivers an outstanding performance of unnerving stillness and tightly coiled anguish. 18 at the time of filming, he convincingly plays the younger Tyler, a taciturn social outcast in the pupil referral unit he sporadically attends. Belittled and bullied in class, he’s the man of the house at home, effectively parenting his young sister Aliyah while his single mother Toni (Madekwe) works menial night shifts and sleeps off the days.

Blake’s economical script doesn’t dwell on the history that took Tyler out of school but it's clear enough that he hasn't had much of a chance, with limited support from the authorities and the over-burdened Toni. Rudderless, isolated children like Tyler are easy prey for dealers seeking county lines runners, who apparently are often targeted out of pupil referral units. Blake, who spent some time working in a PRU, plainly knows his terrain here, and when Tyler is defended from bullies one evening by imposing “entrepreneur” Simon (Dickinson), viewers will sense the grooming machine in motion well before the teen, Dickinson subtly mirroring Tyler’s sloping body language and terse, congested speech to suggest how he, too, may once have been in the boy’s uncomfortable skin, cyclically recruited in the same predatory way. A crisp jump to six months later, meanwhile, shows how fast the process can be. Fully immersed in grim drug-mule duty, a hardened Tyler has gone from withdrawn to stone-blank, a transition that Khan navigates with considerable restraint. Between the film’s portraits of hemmed-in masculinity, meanwhile, Madekwe offers a moving study of imperfect motherhood that is far more easily punished than assisted.

There's quite a few weakness: some scenes are a little heavy-handed, and the stylised camerawork doesn't always come off, whilst the score is an irritating distraction; the ending, moreover, is perhaps more convenient than it is convincing. But overall there's a lot of humanity here and the director has done very well to highlight such an important, difficult subject so powerfully yet so sensitively.

Relevant British Drama - County Lines review by GI

This is a powerful and bleak British social drama that focuses on the exploitation of children to run drugs for criminals from large cities into smaller towns. Conrad Khan in a really good, sullen performance plays Tyler, a disengaged 14 year old who lives on a London estate with his single mother and younger sister. He finds glamour and excitement by running drugs for Simon, a ruthless street dealer. Tyler quickly sees the seedy underbelly of the trade and eventually violence comes his way. This is a compelling film but the narrative is predictable and there are a host of similar dramas quite like this so it comes across as a little clichéd at times. However, it is extremely well acted although occasionally the direction by Henry Blake seems a little heavy handed and unsubtle. Worth checking out though.

Brutal - County Lines review by JW

Brutal and realistic story of a school kid drawn into an angle of the drug world known as county lines, written and directed by a former youth worker who knows that life for real.

At under 90 minutes it's economical, well shot, and extremely well cast - that's what hit me most, the faces of these characters really ring true and haunt the memory.

A horrifying snapshot of what lies under the surface of modern day Britain. Director's commentary well worth a listen.