Gor Blimery Guvernir, Mate.

I recently had the, erm, pleasure of watching trhe latest cinematic offering on English football hooliganism; Green Street. This one I had a particular interest in as the firm in focus were supposed to be a West Ham firm. Here are my impressions


Good Bits
1) Nice to see West Ham on the silver screen
2) Just about passable performances by the guy playing 'The Major' and the guy who was the head of the Millwall firm
3) Decent last half an hour-good fight scenes if you're into that kind of thing.
4) Elijah Wood's sister is fit.

Bad Bits
1) Clearly unimpressed with Don Cheadle's magnificent attempt in Oceans 11 to pull off the worst cockney accent in the history of entertainment, whoever put this film together decided to give the role of the top boy of West Ham's firm to an ozzie actor, Charlie Hunnam (above), whose accent is possibly the most annoying thing i've ever heard. Unfortunatly, his character is the pivot of the entire film. He's good at being angry, shit at being cockney. Imagine Vinnie Jones playing a Yakuza mobster.
2) These films always try too hard. Unfortunatley it seems virtually impossible for actors to act like football hooligans without looking like that kid at school who tried to convince everyone he had got into a football fight once by swaggering a bit, using the 'fackin hell' vernacular, and saying 'waaaaaay' sometimes. In fact everyone knew that kid was just a middle-class tryhard, essentially just like these actors.
3) Annoying bits- trains to Manchester do not leave from Kings Cross, 'bubbles' is always sung with arms in the air, East London hospital does not exist. Could go on, but wont.
4) Tried to copy the formula of I.D. (which is actually the best hooligan film out there, still not that good though) New guy(s) infiltrate firm, get very involved and find themselves enjoying it, scandal when found out whether falsely or not, all goes tits up...yadda yadda
5) These films have missed the boat. This kind of stuff doesn't really happen any more. Old Bill are all over it. Was still around in the late eighties early nineties (when ID was made), but trying to recreate it in a contemporay environment is missing the point. And somewhat glorifying it. Getting the train away from Bolton away recently, i saw a bunch of scally wannabe thugs chucking stuff at the train chanting 'where's your fucking GLE' (GLE being the firm in the film).

As usual, if you know nothing about the English football scene, let alone hooliganism, you might enjoy it. Otherwise it is really quite annoying.

Moral of the story: films about football hooliganism could be really good. But never are.