How do you coax a vulnerable 14-year-old boy to work in hell? With practised ease, according to County Lines. Firstly, Simon (Harris Dickinson) comes to Tyler's (Conrad Khan) rescue when a schoolboy bully swipes his chips. Then he facilitates a day of truancy, buying his mark trainers and a burger, before chucking out a few casual, manipulative words about earning money to help Mum. Khan's face flickers with competing sensitivities. He stares downwards, monosyllabic and self-conscious. Then he is suddenly open-hearted and trusting. Your heart sinks for a baby bird who thinks he's spreading his wings, not yet realising he is caught in a tarantula's web.
Conrad Khan is magnificent, delivering a watchful performance that brims with internalised emotion.
Henry Blake's handsomely shot debut feature is propelled by unrelenting dread that sometimes erupts into scenes of traumatic squalor and degradation. In a crack den, Tyler comes face-to-face with the skeletal wreck of a woman sobbing for her next fix, before her partner and dealer subjects her to domestic abuse. We bear witness to this through his child's eyes, then see how he dons the aggressive behaviours of the men who run this drug-world when he returns home to his rundown flat and concerned family.
Conrad Khan is magnificent, delivering a watchful performance that brims with internalised emotion. He makes each moment feel alive with the stakes of what is happening to Tyler's soul, as it sinks into increasingly dark and hidden places. And Blake makes space for Ashley Madekwe to perform a mother's awakening to her son's situation. It is moving to watch as, amidst the hysterical tears, a steely resolve begins to form in her. Above all else, this is a campaigning film. The final inter-title tells us that 10,000 boys, some as young as 11, are used as drug runners in the UK. Whilst stunningly effective at drawing attention to this crisis, Blake's sledgehammer mode of storytelling is a lot to take.
