Customer Reviews

Green Street Hooligans

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Interesting, well made, always interesting, if flawed exploration of the British
culture of gang warfare based around football (soccer in the US) teams.

These aren't random crazies, but organized `firms' as they call themselves that engage
in frequent hand to hand combat for the sheer testosterone/adrenaline rush, and for the
feeling of community, of belonging. It's a fascinating world and raises important
questions about violence being inherent in men.

Case in point - when nerdy Elijah Wood comes to England over to visit his sister after
being expelled from Harvard, he quickly falls in with a gang, and much to his shock
and ours finds that he is turned on by participating in the violence.

The problems: first of all, it's hard to buy that Wood would survive long. Even with
enthusiasm he's undersized and under muscled. His moments in the many (and well staged)
fight scenes never feel as real as those around him.

The Harvard set up that gets Wood to England feels clumsy, hard to believe and over-the-top.

The third act has more than it's share of Hollywood-style plot turns for a film that
pretends to a semi-documentary feel.

Last, I question the film's point of view about the violence, which seems to boil down to
`it's OK if it doesn't go too far'. As one character says about another's death, without irony.
`It taught me there's a time to stand your ground and a time to walk away.' But is it ever
time to stand your ground to kick the crap out of others and have them kick the crap out
of you over a football team?

If I felt that was the character's perspective and not the film's it wouldn't have bothered
me. But by the film's end its clear this violent, sad, pointless brawling has 'made a real man'
out of Wood, and that's a hard position for me to endorse.