Analysis 'Rise of the Foot Soldier' Julian Gilbey, 2007

Julian Gilbey’s ‘Rise of the Foot soldier’ is a film that can be placed in one of two genres. It initially begins as a hooligan football film, much like ‘Green Street’ and ‘Football Factory’ however the reason I have chosen to analyse this opening sequence for my British Gangster planning, is that it essentially contains all the conventions of a British Gangster genre. In this way the audiences generic expectations are immediately challenged just from the opening shot of the three dead bodies being inspected. This is then followed up by the voice over of Ricci Harnett’s character ‘Carlton Leech’ introducing the main characters including himself and giving us a basic summary of his early life. What challenges the expectations of the audience is not necessarily what is said or shot, but more to do with the mood and tone change from the soft music with the dead bodies, to the conflicting fast paced voice over summary. The text is shown to conform with the typical characteristics of the genre after the early title, however before then it seems to treat these characteristics in a playful way by showing extraordinary denotations and connotations and letting us as an audience see that the trouble ‘Carlton Leech’ gets into will be far more than your typical British Crime/Hooligan generic film.
From the very start we see how the film language creates an enigmatic feel for the audience used to pull the audience towards the screen and gain their attention. Mise-en-scene is something that conveys not only meaning, but that enigmatic feel. The first shot shows a wooded, ‘snowy’ area, along with slow music. This put together alongside with the different view shots connote a very dark, and chilling mood to this film and perhaps portrays to the audience a much more serious side to the narrative and not only this but anchors the way that Julian Gilbey has used playful techniques with the characteristics of the genre, and also is contradictory to the feel that is shown in the up coming swiftness sequences. Something that is signified in the early moments of this swift and rapid sequence, is the mise-en-scene that instantaneously convey the characteristics of British Crime; via clothes, location and dialogue. The clothes worn are typical of football fans, we have the hooded jackets and coats, the warm winter football hats and scarves, and the white trainers, that connote they care about what their appearance is like, even though in no more than a few minutes they could be covered in blood. The location used is the football stadiums and also the outside of the stadiums which denotes their ‘turf’ that they own, and clearly signifies the typical characteristic of the genre in the tunnels around the stadium where the fighting takes place. This is all conveyed through the film language and the diegetic and non-diegetic sound is used to anchor this mise-en-scene and body language. The non-diegetic voice over, done by the character ‘Carlton Leech’ (in which this true story is based around) is spoken in a very hard tone by Ricci Harnett and the audience understand this due to the inappropriate language used and hard swearing every other word; this is also anchored through the diegetic dialogue, with the use of shouting and football chanting manner of the football fanatics…or in fact, fighting fanatics.
There are different social groups in the opening sequence and i think these are represented in the rest of the film as 'Carlton Leech' works his way up the ladder of respect. The first are clear gangsters or mobs. They are the three dead men, who we know to be gangsters of some sort as they are wearing the typical clothing, with leather jackets, and boots all in black. We also notice they are the Britsh Gangster characters as the way they have been killed is so brutal. The next social group we see are the football hooligans which is clearly what 'Carlton Leech' started out as. He explains this in the first seen when he is narrating the story, from when he was sixteen years old. After this we see the housewive. The gangsters girl. The woman that tries her best to 'change' her 'no good' husband but ends up failing.
When looking at the first sequence on a macro level, it is possible to think of the first footage as a way to represent the fall of British Crime scene in the late 1980's. The film is advertised to show that this true story was one of the most recognised gang slayings in history. This film just immediatly inhibits that idea by shooting the first shots of three infamous gangsters; dead. Also in the ideoligical discourse of the film we see how these hooligans, or gangsters and crime lords, live in a very male orientated world. We see the wife, who is helpless. Other than that we see no woman unless they are objectified. The men are represented in a way that shows they are the boss. No woman can question them, or they accept the consequences. Surely this is not the world we live in today, which also leads back to the first ideological discourse of it being the end of the gangland. These are all the preffered reading of the film, along with that of violence. The film consistantly contains violence. Perhaps to much violence, which is why the target audience is young males of around 16-30 years old. Men love watching violence and love watching objectified women, with violence. Is there too much violence though? is there really any need for it? This is the negotiated reading, which possibly alot of woman or, older fashioned, higher minded men would think of it. My personal thoughts on this film is that it is exciting, entertaining, and quite disturbing to think that this film was actually once what went on. Perhaps my age and gender are great factors that effect my reasoning to enjoy this film, and i can definately see why other people would find it offensive, ghastly, and innappropriate. Maybe society needs to see true stories like this now and again. It lets society realise these faults, and help stop it.