Bonded By Blood

What is it about the 1995 Rettendon Range Rover Murders? A trio of gangland hard nuts getting offed has now inspired three feature films: 2000’s ‘Essex Boys’ (solid, though names were changed), 2007’s ‘Rise of the Footsoldier’ (a shameless cavalcade of reprehensible carnage) and now this offering, sharing a producer and some cast members with ‘Footsoldier’. The approach here is more character-based, exploring the business and personal tensions leading up to the killings, yet these remain deeply unsympathetic individuals. The portentous direction (meaningful still poses and all) is seriously out of place in a bread-and-butter, homegrown crime flick and, without a micron of audience empathy, rather academic. The majestic Tamer Hassan delivers the definitive coked-up Essex psycho performance; shame the movie’s not sussed enough to make much of it.