County Lines (2019) Review

Tyler is a 14 year old boy who is groomed into the terrifying world of drug dealing across the country.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

County Lines is where illegal drugs are transported from one area to another and this is often across police and local authority boundaries usually by children or vulnerable people who are coerced into it by gangs. The “County Line” is the mobile phone line used to take the orders of drugs. (Official description from the government’s National Crime Agency).

Just a little explanation above about what County Lines actually are, I have been aware of this for quite a while now as due to working within a secondary school this is something that is now part of nation wide safeguarding training, mainly due to the nature of it and to raise awareness for staff on what might happen to the children and young adults that we work with. Having that background knowledge really made me want to watch this film to gain more of an understanding on how it could possibly look.

Tyler has reached a point where he is really struggling to come to terms with the actions of his mother Toni who is not doing anywhere near enough to provide for him and his younger sister Aliyah. He looks after he a lot more than she does and he is eventually excluded from school due to his behaviour and put into a special unit for support.

As that is starting to actually have a small impact he just happens to meet Simon, who identified Tyler as an easy target. Simon very quickly gains his trust, buying him new trainers and taking him for food. Offering him money to transport things for him. It isn’t long before Tyler passes the point of no return and we see him on trains heading to different places and acting as a courier. From this moment forward we are shown some truly distressing scenes, the moment we see how Tyler is going to transport the drugs was harrowing. Then how dangerous it was in crack houses and being mixed up with truly awful people. The impact that moving into different areas will have with different gangs dealing drugs and how this almost ends in death.

Tyler changes as a character and the way he lashes out at his mother and even his sister is really terrifying to see, how quickly the impact of that world changing a young teenager. The fact that this happens constantly all over the country makes it even more terrifying, so many children being exploited and thinking that someone cares about them when all they see is someone who is dispensable.

It’s such a shame that this film is not shown in schools to raise awareness, although the 15 rating would be difficult to get round in that sense. It should really be essential viewing for anyone who has children as well, to try and stop any of this happening it might not actually be for their own children but for friends and understanding possible warning signs of this happening.

Conrad Khan is inspiring in the leading role and really takes it all in his stride and we see amazing development with the change of character from start to finish. Harris Dickinson takes on the very creepy Simon and manages to be terrifying. Ashley Madekwe is also very good as the mother who is struggling with all aspects of her life. Marcus Rutherford is well worth a mention as well as another drug dealer who shows no empathy at all.