Rise of the Footsoldier: Retribution

“My father had a small farm on the outskirts of Yugoslavia…” Sadly that rather sums up the standard of the writing and just about everything else in this formulaic extension of the "Footsoldier" series. Now that "Kenny" (Josh Myers) really has ended up as butcher's meat, furious best mate "Tait" (Craig Fairbrass) has sworn vengeance on "Fisher" (Andrew Loveday) and his henchmen. That takes him, and "Sam" (Jamie Foreman) to Ibiza where they find themselves embroiled in a gun-running enterprise run by rogue Royal Marine colonel "Sullivan" (Tamer Hassan) with the help of his battle-scarred associate "Sergio" (Leo Gregory). It turns out that the Ibiza tourist board might have their legitimate cause for complaint too as not only are bodies piling up like last night's used condoms, the CIA (Ross McCall) is working with the local police on the trail of the menacing "Sullivan" and the enigmatic "Isabella" (Vanessa Bauer) is whizzing about the island on her black motor cycle with her own axe to grind, too. It's set in the mid-nineties and is brutal, after a fashion - but the formula is already very tired and here the lack of budget makes the whole thing look cheap and not very cheerful. There are plenty of pyrotechnics towards the end to liven it up, but Fairbrass is no Jason Statham and that lack of on-screen charisma extends to an entire cast who might all be better off swimming with the fishes after what felt like an overlong and very episodic couple of hours riddled with plot holes and implausible frying pan to fire scenarios. It'll be fine on the telly but I know it'll be like the others from this franchise - I'l never remember it.