Cass (2008)

Having seen pretty much every football hooligan based film available, I was pleasantly surprised by this film. Perhaps the fact that the film is based on a true story explains why the storyline seems so fresh and original. Clearly there is the classic basis of a plot as for most films of this nature - new guy in the firm; earns respect; works the way to the top; gets a family; suffers a traumatic event (or 2) and then seeks revenge. I think the reason that this film didn't bore me with the storyline is because you got a lot of background information on the main character Carol (a.k.a. "Cass"), which is different to a lot of other films of this sub-genre.The film has a good balance of drama, comedy and violence. The drama is focused mainly on the main character and his relationships with the people closest to him. The comedy is very 'laddish', usually focused around sex and violence (as you would expect of a film of this type!), and is very dry.As for the violence, I was very impressed about the varying ways it was shot. In the big fights in between the firms the camera puts the viewer right in the middle of the action with shots coming from the centre of the firms as they run towards each other. This is not to say you don't see any individual one-on-one scraps, but it is refreshingly varied.To conclude this is a very good film that drew me in quite quickly. The main character is very well played by Nonso Anozie and it is easy to understand how he became to be how he was. I would recommend this film to anyone who is bored of the other 'hooligan' films and wants to see the hooligan life from a slightly different angle. The only thing to note about this film is that there is very little focus on the actual football side of things, so don't expect to see the firms at any matches! All in all this is a great film and I would give it a 9/10.

With The Football Factory still reverberating in the memory, it's difficult to get as excited about a film like Cass as one would like; a piece living in the still-recent shadow of such a film whilst calling on direct influence from the likes of 2005's Green Street as well as bits and pieces of an older crime film, albeit disconnected from hooliganism, in the form of De Palma's Carlito's Way. Indeed, Cass' director is a certain Jon Baird; a man who worked on Green Street as an associate producer - his film here formulating into a similar tale of a "white crow" and their consequent exposure to a world around them they are inherently alien to. This, before undergoing a gradual inception into it. It all smells suspiciously of said example's Elijah Wood character, an American getting lost amidst the sociological norms of a hooligan-dominated zone and having to undergo this process of initiation so as to get by. A similar framework of someone as much-an outcast to their surroundings getting involved, before realising the nature of one's ways and one's life, is told here, only over the space of about thirty years and not as engagingly.The film follows that of true-to-life criminal-come-hooligan turned author Cass Pennant; a man whose tale here is as true as they tell us it is, and yet doesn't carry that naturalistic sense that it is someone's life actually progressing from one point to another. Told in glaringly episodic fashion, a fresh popular song peppering the soundtrack every time the era jumps forward, Nonso Anozie plays the titular lead: a man of Jamaican descent adopted at a young age by a white London couple in the 1960s, and brought up as their own in decent, friendly home-set surroundings. As a youngster, he is marginalised and ridiculed for his colour; a safe haven arriving in the form of a local public house practically run by the fans of West Ham United, whom welcome him in if it means he's a fan of the team and help him out when he runs into those racists outside of hours. This sense of unity is epitomised by the singing in unison those within carry out; football shirts and scarves in the club's colours reiterating this sense of being at one. In an attempt to instill an early sense of where we're at, we observe The Football Factory's own Tamer Hassan doing what the character of Billy Bright did in Nick Love's said 2004 film, when pub-set shenanigans give way to the intimidating of a young kid who thinks he can intermingle with those above his weight.Cass is apprehensive of going to football to begin with; not even his father's reiteration that the stars of the day and certain World Cup winners will be there appears to convince him, but he rides it out and then discovers a taste for what lurks beneath the following of a football team. Thus that of what we see of Cass' life is launched, his descent through hooliganism and organised violence; a world in which the attraction of a footballing 'firm' facing off against another is more appealing than the match itself. West Ham's biggest rivals in this regard are Leeds United, not out of geography nor the fact they are both of an immensely skilled nature alá the Real Madrid-Barcelona ties, but because these two fight the hardest.What transpires are several 'bits' and pieces of Pennant's life: his first feel of football violence; his going to prison; his meeting of a girl; his getting wind of a business venture, none of it much more than slightly interesting and all of it propped up with a lacklustre script seeing dialogue made up of insults and lots of four letter words predominantly coming from that of the males therein with meek moral out-linings accompanying spots of common sense exuded by the females. Director Baird strikes us as someone doing their utmost to make a good film, maturely; his veering off down a route to encompass a sub-plot inspired by Carlito's Way, as well as the fact Cass is later released from prison to the same sound of pomp and circumstance that saw Alex De Large enter prison in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, suggests the man has seen his fair share of films; enjoyed them and desperately wanted to make his own whilst pay homage, but there is no cumulative whole around which everything gels. Its politics may be in the right place but the film's overall feel as you both watch it and absorb it is that of unsmooth; as if it's fumbling around in the dark for the right buttons, sometimes finding them, but doing its utmost overall to do the right thing.

I watched this film unwillingly with some friends thinking it was some violent-glorification of ugly, football hooligans Looking back, I would have preferred this much more than what the film actually was - a lame 2 hour drama which had to be endured rather than enjoyed.I felt so disengaged throughout the whole movie - possibly because of how amateur and unoriginal the film looked and felt. Its ambitious attempts to be dramatic and truthful failed miserably.The script does have a strong moral center about racism, being an outcast, belonging and family. Unfortunately these story elements are lost in a badly executed production.

Sure Cass is about hooliganism and has enough of that to fit the bill, but this is good enough to be mainstream viewing.We found it much better than we expected: good central performances and a great arc lift this from its genre to something better.It really looks and sounds (the language is what is was, every second word is filth, but then it was) like the British East End 80s down to the council flat doors.I can honestly recommend this a good well-made film about life in Britain in the early 80s, it is a little light on production and directing values, it is shot too simplistically, but the story is well delivered, it is probably not for your granny (unless she's a hard nut), but deserves a wider audience than just 20 year old males with a footie hard on.