Review of The Football Factory (2004) by Judge L — 28 Mar 2010

Nick Love's 'Football Factory' was the first football hooligan film I had seen and while I think Love has a passion for the films he makes, they seem quite pretenious and ultimately are just a fun ride and nothing to take to seriously.

Football Factory tells the story of Tommy Johnson (Danny Dyer), a man in his late 20s whose in a dead-end job and lives for the weekend. This includes, drugs, booze and football violence. As the film goes on, we see Tommy have a number of surrealist dreams which make him question his life and his choices, which would of worked in this films favour had he not comletely ignored everything and by the end of the film, not come out of the it any the wiser.

The film is pretty funny, coming up with brilliant one liners and phrases which are in common place around Britian nowadays. And the violence is fun to watch if your into violent films, like myself. The direction is ok but nothing short of ok and the acting, while poor is fairly consistant through-out.

This film isn't about the British way of life, its about a life certain British idiots who take football too seriously choose and while the film could be given merit for questioning the morality of football violence, it ultimately fails in making an impact. Football Factory is a fun film to watch with the lads but Nick Love and the cast, aren't talented enough to really pull off a serious film which film tries to be.