Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Henry Blake
Starring: Conrad Khan, Harris Dickinson, Ashley Madekwe, Marcus
Rutherford
The title of writer/director Henry Blake's feature debut,
County Lines, refers to the criminal practice that sees drug dealers recruit vulnerable
teenagers to act as drug mules, transporting narcotics from British cities
for distribution in rural areas. As a closing card tells us, it's estimated
that as many as 10,000 children are involved in the trade in the UK. Blake
brings frontline experience to his debut, having spent a decade working with
such victims in his role as a social worker. Everything presented in his
fictional story is based on factual episodes, which makes it all the more
grim.
14-year-old Tyler (Conrad Khan) is exactly the sort of youth
predatory dealers are on the lookout for. He's bullied at school and is shy
and withdrawn, desperate for a friend. With his mother, Toni (Ashley Madekwe), working nights as a cleaner and no father around, he's free to carry out
nocturnal work without adult interrogation. But most importantly, he looks
like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, not the sort of kid that would
instantly draw the attention of the law.
When Toni is fired from her job for sleeping in one of the beds she's
supposed to be turning down, Tyler decides he needs to step up as the "man
of the house" and start bringing home some bacon. This sees him walk into
the trap set by Simon (Harris Dickinson), the local drug dealer who
has been grooming him for just such an event, having initially stepped in
when Tyler was being picked on by schoolmates in a takeaway. Immediately,
Tyler is on a train to a nondescript coastal town with a bag of heroin
concealed in an uncomfortable part of his person.
County Lines is an unflinching look at the downward spiral
such kids find themselves on when they enter this life. We watch as the
fresh-faced Tyler becomes a monster, his new job hardening his soul to the
point where he even enacts physical violence against his own mother. He too
becomes the victim of violence when rival dealers object to him working on
their patch. Blake refuses to sugarcoat any of this, and it certainly
doesn't sell the glamour of the "gangsta" life. As a classroom tool,
County Lines may prove invaluable.
As a piece of narrative drama, however, it just doesn't have enough meat on
its bones. The movie is such an objective look at the trajectory of Tyler
that it falls more into the category of case study rather than character
study. Just as Tyler begins his new life as a hardman, Blake cuts to six
months down the road, when Tyler has now become a dead-eyed sociopath. It
feels like something of a cheat to brush past so much character development,
and it also avoids us having to witness any atrocities Tyler may have
committed to get to that point, which might scupper the film's intent of
making us empathise with him. At one point we see a boy who appears even
younger than Tyler brutally attack him, but we never see Tyler carry out any
similar acts. We're also asked to accept that Toni has been happily taking
blood money from her son for six months without question, which doesn't gel
with the warm-hearted mother she's otherwise portrayed as.
With its cold detachment, County Lines inevitably offers a
simplistic and dated "drugs are bad" message. It never broaches the idea
that these children fall into this life because of the UK's draconian,
head-in-the-sand laws around drug use (the issue of legalisation is so
mainstream now that even a conservative icon like Clint Eastwood can make a
movie arguing in its favour). Equally dated is its implication that children
need a father figure to keep them on the right side of the tracks. There's
an element of classism here too, as Blake portrays this as a world confined
to the working classes - we never see Tyler sell drugs to any middle class
professionals, which is where the real money in the drugs trade comes
from.
It feels petty to make such complaints about a movie that is so
well-intentioned, and while Blake's perspective may skew a little too far to
that of an authority figure passing judgment on this world, his heart is
certainly in the right place. And he certainly knows how to put together
impactful imagery that gets under your skin. In Khan he has unearthed a
young actor of real talent, one who can speak volumes with as small a
gesture as a cold stare.
County Lines may well deter youngsters from following Tyler's
path, and if so, Blake's work will be done. But simply critiquing the street
level drug dealer without examining the wider context that puts kids in such
danger is a little like giving a starving man a fish rather than teaching
him how to fish for himself.
