Review of Green Street Hooligans (2005) by Michael S — 14 Apr 2011

Badly scripted effort at being a bit 'Hollywood' with the idea of East End 'firm' culture. Each of the characters would probably be a good back story on their own, but these stories have had a ramshackle cut n paste job done on them and they are together in the most hamfisted and cliched manner.

Their behaviour comes over as at best stupid, or at worse, contrived to move the plot along. I lost count of the amount of times I said to myself 'they wouldn't do that' or even 'Why?' and don't get me started on the casting.

Elijah Wood is a fish out of water, Charlie Hunnam is no hardened cockney geezer either (more like the weedy Northerner from Queer As Folk). Whoever bolted this story together had obviously never been to West Ham, and gleamed most of his factoids from watching the Football Factory and The Firm and then had delusions of grandeur.

If this is trying to show what yob mentality is like to a foreign market, then it's a gross misrepresentation. Educationally, story telling wise, and cinematically, it's a big fail. Firms were bigger than a tiny handful and were never as openly violent.

After watching this weak yob porn I was more upset that I'll never get that 1hr 46minutes back.