The Rise

First-time writer/director Rowan Athale delivers a British crime thriller with a twist: the gangsters here aren't cunning cockneys but canny northerners. Our hero is ex-con Harvey (Luke Treadaway), and things aren't looking good for him. In the opening scene he's bloodied, back in a cell and being interrogated by world-weary detective Timothy Spall. A series of flashbacks in the style of The Usual Suspects follows, as we find out why this young pretender and his endearingly half-hearted partners-in-crime (Misfits star Iwan Rheon, Gerard Kearns and Harry Potter regular Matthew Lewis), dared to take on the local drug lord (a typically menacing Neil Maskell). The title refers to a sprawling council estate in Leeds, which, thanks to the brooding cinematography, wouldn't look out of place in a post-apocalypse blockbuster. The end result is a slick, satisfying debut.