Re: Green Street Hooligans 1 Download
Olaf Pinette
Matt returns home to the United States and confronts the now wealthy and successful Jeremy in a restaurant, who is snorting cocaine. Jeremy admits to being the cocaine stash's owner and, as he is about to leave, Matt pulls out a tape recorder. Horrified that Matt has declared his confession as a "ticket back to Harvard", an enraged Jeremy lunges at him, but Matt fends Jeremy off with ease. Victorious, Matt walks down the street outside the restaurant, he sings "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles", the anthem of the GSE and their associated club, West Ham United.
I first saw this world in Alan Clarke's "The Firm" (1988), one of Gary Oldman's early performances, which showed in disturbing detail how his character was drawn into what the press calls "football hooliganism." The fights can be crippling or deadly. They're all the more brutal because the gangs don't for the most part carry firearms, preferring to beat on each other with fists, bricks, iron bars and whatever else they can pick up. Members of a firm have such fierce loyalty that they disregard risk. Unlike American street gangs, which are motivated by drug profits, British football firms are motivated by an addiction to violence.
At first I thought the character of Matt was unnecessary. Why not simply dramatize the world of firms? Do we need a Hollywood star as an entry point for non-British audiences? If you must have one, Elijah Wood seems so very unlikely as a street fighter that I began a list of more plausible actors for the role. Then I realized the movie's point is that someone like this nerdy Harvard boy might be transformed in a fairly short time into a bloodthirsty gang fighter. The message is that violence is hard-wired into men, if only the connection is made. As someone who has never thrown a punch in my life, I find that alien to my own feelings, but I remember years ago, late on nights of drinking, when anger would come from somewhere and fill me. Certainly alcoholism is essential for firm membership: It is inconceivable that anyone would go into action sober.
The movie was directed by Lexi Alexander, a German woman who is herself a former kick-boxing champion. It uses cinematography by Alexander Buono to capture the everyday reality of London streets and the kinetic energy unleashed in the fights. It also unfolds a tragic back story, as old secrets are revealed, leading up to the ultimate possibility of death. No, don't assume you know who will die. It isn't who you might think. Of the dead man, we are told: "His life taught me there's a time to stand your ground. His death taught me there's a time to walk away." I guess the time to walk away is before you get killed standing your ground, unless you have a very good reason for standing it. The most frightening thing about the Green Street Elite is the members think they have such a reason, and it is loyalty to the mob.
In Green Street Hooligans, a disappointing drama about an American (Elijah Wood) who slums in the beer-drenched alleys of soccer hooliganism, director and co-writer Lexi Alexander gets it about half right. She gives us an evocative sense of the soccer headbanger's life. Yet for all her street cred, she's also guilty of groan-inducing sentimentality, operatic violence and plot implausibility.
The Football Factory (2004), which was released a year before Green Street, similarly revolves around the activities of a group of football hooligans who support Chelsea. The film stars Danny Dyer as well as Frank Harper and Tamer Hassan.
Right now I am doing a film on soccer hooligans and I play the leader of the West Ham and I am fascinated by what I learned in research. It is amazing how organized it is. Fights can and often are arranged before the matches and there is a rigid code of conduct for members of the various clubs. There are rules for fighting like not using weapons, not hitting a man once he has gone down, and so on.
More than two years after Pope and Baird had first met, the film achieved its greenlight, shooting for 39 days in late spring 2017. Sony Pictures Classics, which acquired Stan & Ollie in September, will release in the US before the end of the year to allow awards qualification. In the UK, eOne releases in early January, positioning for Bafta attention.
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