Rating of
3/4
Hooray for the Hooligans!
Freddie - wrote on 01/01/10
This film is a touching story about friendship, loyalty...just kidding. I have two words to describe Green Street Hooligans: total testosterone. This movie definitely delves into the rawness of man, specifically English soccer fan men. At times, the level of seriousness to which these firms (gangs) were taken was almost silly to me and almost a little dramatic. Then again, I know nothing of that world to be able to say one way or another whether the firm culture was being over dramatized. This movie was very violent. However, I was able to appreciate that the violence was literally hands on--no guns. These firms were so passionate about soccer and their crew that they would literally rather just beat the bloody mess out of anyone who offended them as opposed to the simple American solution of putting a bullet through someone's head.
The film also focused on loyalty and friendship. It went in a completely different direction than I thought it would judging from the first 15 minutes of the film. I really thought Matt (Wood) was going to fall victim to Pete's (Hunnam) insanity. However, it turns out that Matt became kind of like a "Yankee" hero almost.
I think the only thing that seemed kind of forced was the whole journalist thing. The way the firms felt about journalists was the way that Vin Deisel's crew felt about Paul Walker being an undercover cop in The Fast and The Furious. It was just kind of like...ummm ok, venemous hatred towards journalist, alright--kind of random. It almost seemed that Matt would have been better off saying that he was an undercover officer.
All in all, this was a good movie. I think that acting was brilliant and the plot was solid. It pulls together as a really slammin flick.
