Green Street Hooligans (2005)

This movie had two things I didn't care much for: soccer (yes I called it soccer) and senseless violence.It would be an error to say the movie was about soccer because it had very little to do with soccer. It had more to do with senseless violence than anything. Green Street Hooligans did its level best to convince us of the nobility of soccer "firms" (aka gangs). Apparently, the soccer teams of England also have unofficial "firms" attached to them. These "firms" are nothing more than liquored up thugs that fight each other for a "rep" and "firm" dominance. What failed to resonate with me was the fact that these firms fought each other based upon their chosen soccer team. They make a point to insult the Crips and Bloods who fight over turf as though fighting for soccer is somehow more noble.It's a sport. It's for entertainment. The players themselves wouldn't even fight over their respective teams. And I get sports passion because I love sports myself. Still, I'm not fighting over it.The main character, Matt Buckner (Elijah Wood), was a languishing spineless soul until he fell in with the West Ham United firm--or so they'd have you believe. After he got a taste of blood and excitement he was a changed man. A better man.The plot was painfully simple and one-dimensional and Elijah Wood didn't sell it at all. Nobody really was able to sell this movie to me. It was hard to take one iota of this seriously. Fighting over soccer teams, reputations, journalist phobias, and daddy issues all made an appearance and none of it made sense. I'm assuming that this movie is so beloved because it's like a British version of Fight Club. Fight Club I liked, this I didn't.

Along the same kinda lines as 'The Football Factory' but nowhere near as gritty and in your face, this film suffers from a slight case of Hollywood glitz. Not just because Elijah Wood is in it, that is one reason of course, but the violence just seems more coordinated and setup, whilst the many British actors in the film all have rather hokey cockney accents which seem rather forced, some not all.The film centres around West Ham United Firm 'GSE: Green Street Elite' although the real firm is called 'ICF: Inner City Firm' and follows the guys around as they go to matches and plan on fights with rival firms. Nothing much different from other 'firm' flicks but the added plot of Yankee Wood who slowly fits in against his UK based sisters wishes and grows to enjoy the lifestyle.No one really that well known in the film accept Wood who is TOTALLY out of place in this type of flick but I guess that's the idea right. Only thing is you simply can't see Wood ever getting tough enough to do what he does in the film, never in a month of Sundays.Good entertainment but using allot of artistic license and second best to 'The Football Factory' and 'The Firm'...if your into these types of films.5/10

Matt Buckner (Elijah Wood) is a studious student in Harvard School of Journalism but is expelled 2 months before graduation when cocaine is found in his room. It actually belongs to his roommate but he decides not to fight his roommate's powerful family. He reluctantly takes the hush money to visit his sister Shannon (Claire Forlani) in London. His brother-in-law Steve sent him off with his brother Pete (Charlie Hunnam) to a West Ham United football game. Pete is the leader of the Green Street Elite (GSE). Each football team has their own 'firm' or gangs of hooligans who drink and fight together. They hate both cops and journalists.Elijah Wood is a bit too much of a Hobbit to be a believable fighter. The movie could have given his character a little bit of skill to offset his disadvantage. There is a nice Fight Club feel about the mentality of these hooligans. The final act ramps up the drama in a way that puts me off a little. I guess the movie was always going to overdramatize the story but it could be less melodramatic. The soft rock music over a slo-mo montage of the big fight is a bit too much. I just wish it's more natural. Matt could have been caught by the cops and thrown out of the country. I also don't like Matt turning into lapdog. This could have been something great but it turns into more like Rumble Fish. It's not bad but it could have been better.

The movie get so many things wrong or depicts them in such a hackneyed way it's hard to take it seriously or to fathom where all the raving reviews came from.Apparently one of the most violent firms in English football have no qualms about letting in a preppy American student with zero credentials and negative knowledge about football...But that's fine, because those hooligans aren't terrible people when not dealing with football... One of them is an airline pilot, another one has the odd position of History AND P.E. teacher at a primary school (unrelated subjects, but go figure... those pesky London schools) and he's even allowed to have random strangers play with/give lectures to his kids...Alas, all good things come to an end when the jealous henchman decides it's time to betray his pals and strikes a deal (for what?) with the leader of their/his fiercest and most deranged rivals... Things take a turn for the worse, the traitor has another change of heart and comes back for the save.Frodo can now go back to the U.S., a tougher man, but also more mature and fair, because that's the lesson he learned while bonding with a bunch of friendly psychopaths in London.Last, but surely not least, the hooligans scene depicted in the movie would have vaguely been credible in the mid 80s, with the bleak neighbourhoods, the stereotypical "working class England" setting and, mainly, the complete absence of stadium security that has been enforced since English Football has become a multi-millionaire business that can't be disrupted by a bunch of maladjusted thugs.P.S. The scene where one of the GSE mocks the rival fans on the pitch dressed as a steward (or being one?!) sums it up pretty well... In contemporary football you couldn't pull it off, not even on the crappiest amateur field, let alone at a Premier League game. You'd not even get close to the stands and you'd be filmed by security cameras from 10 different angles. And no more stadium for you... But apparently the movie takes place in an alternate dimension where no such things exist.