Sunday, July 16, 2006

Speaking of movies

NP: Twenty-Nine - Ryan Adams

Two nights ago, I rented Green Street Hooligans. I don't know if it made it to the theaters, but it stars Elijah Wood as a Harvard undergrad who gets kicked out and, in his despair, travels to London to visit his sister. There, he gets mixed up in the world of English football hooligans. You know, the gangs, or "firms," that pledge allegiance to a certain team and get into fights with supporters of other teams.

I it becuase the team that Elijah ends up supporting is West Ham United. The movie hooligans were drawn from West Ham's notorious "Inter City Firm" but were renamed the Green Street Elite so they wouldn't get sued I guess (Green Street is the street leading to the Hammers' stadium). There was only about 3 minutes of soccer footage (West Ham wins), and the rest was filled with vicious street fighting and excellent camera work. Its like a mixed martial arts film without the mixed martial arts. People get clocked left and right with weapons used very creatively. A lot of British slang is tossed about, and a lot of people get bloodied. There is also a pretty good back story. They don't overplay any romantic subplots and the tense family drama is handled really well. It never takes away from the fighting.

For me, the movie gets a solid three count.

2 comments:

Nate said...

Sounds good. Might be worth checking out, even for a non-"futbol" fan. I'm betting it's not for rent anywhere in hodunk-podunk SC, but it sounds worth looking for, nonetheless.

Ron said...

I got it at Blockbuster. It is apparently pretty popular, as last week they had 2 copies and this week they had 8. 7 of the 8 were rented.

It's Elijah Wood and Claire Forlani, so there is some moderate-level star power.