Top Dog (2014)

Directed by Martin Kemp and written by Dougie Brimson, Top Dog stars Leo Gregory, Ricci Harnett, Vincent Regan, Danielle Brent and Lorraine Stanley. Plot finds Gregory as a top London football hooligan who bites off more than he can chew when he muscles in on a gangster's racket action. The British hooligan film band wagon rolls on these days regardless of quality. Where once was a viable space for these genre films to create interest and a bit of shock and awe, now is an area crammed with lads movies for lads movies sake. Top Dog is a poor film, full of half hearted performances, where most the cast realise it's once again just easy money to be made, limp direction (poor fight scenes and cheese dialogue), and a screenplay that simply adds nothing new to the over stuffed clichéd topics to hand - insultingly the audience gets to know practically nothing about the main players. It will of course have found an audience, we know this because stuff like this keeps getting made, but the high wire days of The Football Factory (2004) and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) now seem very far away. 3/10

I've never quite understood why they insist in speaking with these unreal London accents! Needless to say this could have been an average film at best, but instead we are left with what seems a poorly edited, averagely directed and some rather poor acting. The plot is weak at its best and the script is so way off from we are expecting in terms of British film standards.That said, if you have some free time on a Wednesday afternoon, you could do a lot worse.Not our finest British hour.

Really good film based on the book by Dougie Brimson. Id been waiting for this film since I first heard of it during pre-production. It didn't disappoint. Great cast with Leo Gregory taking the starring role (still cant work out if he suits a beard or not). Yes this film does have football links but Im really not a football fan and it made no difference to my enjoyment of the film.Top Dog isn't really about football, its about people. Its about how they deal with certain circumstances, its about how they deal with family, friends, reputation. Also a great addition to the cast is the always fantastic Lorraine Stanley (London to Brighton, The Hooligan Factory)in the role of Julie. Yes the film does fit into that UK genre of Gritty, Urban Drama/Thriller but if you love that genre. The this is pretty much the film for you.

So I saw that this movie was being released and saw that, like Green Street, the writer was Dougie Brimson. Now I really liked Green Street, I'd even say it's one of my favorite movies of all-time in that genre. And I gotta say that overall, I liked Top Dog as well.Good suspense, acting was overall good, and I liked to see a reappearance of Leo Gregory after his great performance in Green Street. So I give this movie a 7 out of 10. I very much enjoy these movies with the English football firm backgrounds, and this one did not let down. I thought, however, that it may have been too close in resemblance to Green Street in many respects, so the lack of creativity brought my rating down a tad. Overall, good movie, highly recommended for those who like the work of Dougie Brimson / Green Street, but also recommended for everyone else as well.