Green Street Hooligans Review
by [email protected] (dnb AT dca DOT net)October 18th, 2005
GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2005 David N. Butterworth
*** (out of ****)
You might have bought him as a bug-eyed, hairy-toed hobbit in the "'Lord of the Rings" saga, or even as a creepy child killer in "Sin City." But it stretches the limits of the imagination to contemplate the boyish, diminutive Elijah Wood as a soccer thug. This is what he's asked to play in "Green Street Hooligans" from German director Lexi Alexander, an appropriately brutal look at how a disgraced Harvard undergrad (Wood) shuffles on over to England and soon finds himself embroiled in the dark, blood-soaked world of football hooliganism.
Oddly enough, Wood is more than up to the challenge and his performance proves a lasting one. He looks the part for one thing, with his sparse bum fluff of a beard and bristling, knockabout intensity. It helps, too, that he's surrounded by equally competent performers: Claire Forlani, who plays his sister Shannon, is excellent as is Charlie Hunnam as Pete, the hot-tempered, West Ham-supporting cousin with whom Matt Bruckner (Wood) shacks up shortly after touching down on England's green and (as "'Hooligans" will prove) not so pleasant land.
After some initial trepidation on his part, Pete takes "The Yank" under his wing, teaching him the ins and outs of the G.S.E. (Green Street Elite), a volatile, well-organized gang of football fanatics with a Mob- like mentality for which Pete has assumed the role of crime boss. When a championship match draw pits West Ham's "Hammers" against longtime rivals Millwall, the scene is set for a bloody dockside rumble of the incendiary kind.
The film works, for the most part, because director Alexander takes her subject matter seriously, understanding the mindset and attitudes of these roving bands of thugs. And neither she nor her characters pull any punches when it comes to depicting the atrocious violence these so- called hooligans inflict. Alexander choreographs these fight scenes with a sure hand, striving for authenticity over glorification (and succeeding).
For all its good intentions, however, "Green Street Hooligans" may prove to be a hard sell Stateside. The film's title was expanded from the simpler "'Hooligans" for its American release but that decision only serves to confuse the issue. For another thing the phenomenon of attending a sporting event simply to brutalize one's opposing fans is a singularly European ideal, one that might not translate--or even go down--particularly well over here. Likewise the consistently profane street talk in use in the film is predominantly derived from Cockney rhyming slang, making a lot of it incomprehensible to Westerners.
As for the football enthusiasts out there there's very little in the way of actual soccer footage in "'Hooligans." Most of the free kicks happen off the field, in the stands, or after the game, as the warring supporters go at each other with bricks, bottles, and just about anything else they can lay their grubby mitts on before the Old Bill pull up in their Pandas to spoil the fun. Surprisingly, the film never really delves into why these troublemakers are so down on journalists (an explanation which would seem to be crucial to the plot).
These minor concerns aside, "Green Street Hooligans" nevertheless provides a realistic, uncompromising look at the brutal underbelly of Britain's most popular sport.
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David N. Butterworth
[email protected]
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