This tough and well-observed Turkish-German piece of social realism from writer-director Ozgur Yildirim has Denis Moschitto as Chiko, a German Muslim of Turkish origin trying to make it in the drug-infested underworld of suburban Hamburg.

First he sells weed for drug lord Brownie (Moritz Bleibtreu) and then is promoted into the cocaine trade.

This enables him to make enough money to buy a Mercedes and set up home with a Turkish prostitute.

The problem is his volatile best friend Tibet (Volkan Ozcan), who upsets Brownie, gets nastily hammered as a result and eventually wrecks the whole convenient relationship.

Should Chiko avenge his friend, whose old mum needs a liver transplant but hasn’t the money, or continue making money with Brownie?

Fatih Akin produced the film, which is not as good as his own Head-On — winner of the Berlin Festival — but Moschitto is terrific as Chiko and Ozcan is not far behind.

These are real characters struggling, often ignorantly and foolishly, for a slice of prosperity in a fundamentally foreign land.

Yildirim is obviously familiar with the German-Turkish scene and has created something more than just a thriller — a film as accurate and hard-nosed as it needs to be.