Green Street Hooligans

I was kind of expecting to hate the movie and/or be bored out of my mind. I don’t like football, and therefore I don’t really get the hooligan thing.

The movie begins with a fight, which looked pretty damn bad, in a ‘ouch, that has to hurt like hell’ way. Jumping right into the worst part of hooligans

In the end I really liked the film. I’m not going all gaga over it, but it’s definitely ending up in my DVD collection. I think what I loved the most about it was the fact that a woman made this film. She took a serious subject and brought it to a media that would make the public have a think about it.

It’s raw and that just helps it along, there’s a lot of use of the hand-held camera, which might annoy some people, but I think it really worked. It gave the film kind of a documentary feel, and made it look more ‘real’.

It’s a brutal film, and it shows some pretty disturbing human behaviour. I did however kind of ‘get’ the hooligan thing after I saw it though. It’s about being part of something, a group, knowing that they’ll watch your back. I still wouldn’t recommend anybody to join up though.

I do however recommend that you go see the film!

I think Elijah Wood did a great job as the outsider who’s welcomed in to this ‘new world’. There were also some good moments between him and Charlie Hunnam in the beginning where Charlie points out some English slang words and such, was a nice scene. Anyways, Elijah fit in, I never really thought much about it, and even though head-butting people isn’t what he usually does in his movies, he didn’t seem at all awkward during the fighting scenes. In fact, the moment when he decides to hit back is great! Just the look in his eye told me the other guy was going to be sorry.

Charlie Hunnam did a good job as well, I haven’t seen him in much, but this is the first hard ass I’ve seen him play. He’s torn between loyalty to his family and the hooligan gang, though he is first and foremost a hooligan.

All in all a good film.