Green Street Hooligans Accent
Yufei Labbe
That of course is the East End of London and not Mordor, as Elijah Wood took on the role of a young American who falls in with a crowd of West Ham hooligans in what became cult classic, Green Street or Green Street Hooligan as they call it in America.
That 2005 movie is the most well-known of the football hooligan movie genre and it was one of the films we looked back at on Team 33 this week - as well as the ones starring Danny Dyer like The Football Factory which is well worth a watch.
As Joe Coffey, Derek Ryan, Conor Neville and I dredged up from memory, the plot of Green Street and other hooligan movies - bar exceptions like 1989's The Firm starring the brilliant Gary Oldman as Bexy and 1995's I.D. (watch both if you get a chance) - the plots can be a bit ridiculous at times.
Often topping lists of the worst accents in movie history, feel free to remind yourself how off the radar his Cockney accent was in the film (Warning - strong language delivered in a horrifically inaccurate accent):
Green Street (also known as Green Street Hooligans[3] and Hooligans[4]) is a 2005 crime drama film about football hooliganism in the United Kingdom.[3] The film was directed by Lexi Alexander and stars Elijah Wood and Charlie Hunnam.
Matt Buckner, an American college student studying journalism, is expelled from Harvard University after cocaine is discovered in his room. Though it belongs to his roommate Jeremy, Matt is afraid to speak up because Jeremy comes from a powerful family and is offered $10,000 for taking the blame. Matt reluctantly accepts the money and uses it to visit his sister Shannon, her husband Steve and their son Ben in London.
Matt meets Pete's friends and his firm in The Abbey, their local pub, and they befriend Matt, with the exception of Pete's stubborn right-hand man and assistant Bovver, who takes an immediate dislike to Matt. A few pints in, they head to the match. Afterwards, Pete, Bovver, and the other firm members go off to fight some Birmingham City fans, but Matt decides that it is not for him and heads to the train home. On his way back, Matt is attacked by three Birmingham fans, but is rescued by some GSE members. Though grossly outnumbered, the GSE manage to fight off the Birmingham firm until reinforcements chase them off. Matt does well in his first true fight, is inducted into the GSE, and moves in with Pete.
The GSE firm then head to an away game against Manchester United. Matt ends up sneaking onto the train to help when they are warned that 40 Manchester United firm members are waiting for them at the station. Bovver pulls the train's emergency stop handle and at Matt's initiative the firm persuades a van driver to take them into Manchester, posing as a moving equipment van for a film production. When past them, the GSE charge out to attack the United firm members. They win the fight and leave, taunting the United firm as they are arrested.
Jealous of Matt's rise in the ranks, Bovver talks to Tommy Hatcher, the head of GSE's rival firm, the NGO. After one of the members of the GSE sees Matt meeting his father, a journalist for The Times, for lunch, they assume Matt is a "journo" as well. Bovver informs Pete of this. Steve goes to the Abbey to warn Matt and discovers that Steve is the founder and former leader of the GSE, "The Major", who retired from football hooliganism after witnessing the death of Tommy's twelve-year-old son in a fight. Infuriated, Pete angrily confronts Matt in the restroom over his identity as a "journo".
Meanwhile, Bovver secretly informs Tommy and the Millwall firm of Steve's presence, who crash the Abbey and petrol-bomb the pub. Tommy confronts, fights and mortally wounds Steve by stabbing him in the neck with a broken bottle, telling him that if he dies tonight, then they are both even. Bovver, who had been knocked unconscious by Tommy's right-hand man upon arriving earlier, helps get Steve to the hospital, where Pete furiously berates Bovver for his betrayal. Shannon decides to return to the United States to ensure the safety of her family.
The two firms meet near the Millennium Dome the next day for a final violent battle. Matt and Bovver show up to fight for the GSE, but Shannon turns up with Ben and is subsequently attacked in her car by Tommy's right-hand man, only for Matt and Bovver to save her. Pete notices that Tommy is approaching the car and in order to allow Matt and Shannon to escape, distracts Tommy by goading him, saying to him that Tommy is to blame for his son's death by having failed to protect him. This eventually enrages Tommy, who angrily tackles Pete to the ground and violently beats him to death out of rage in front of both the GSE and NGO while Matt and Shannon escape. Witnessing this, the two firms stop fighting as they gather around Pete's bloodied and battered corpse in shock while Bovver, who had observed Tommy killing Pete, grieves over his dead friend.
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.
The name of the firm in the film, the Green Street Elite, refers to Green Street in the London Borough of Newham, where West Ham's old home stadium, Upton Park was located. West Ham is supported by one of Britain's notorious hooligan firms: the Inter City Firm (ICF).[5]
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Green Street has an approval rating of 46% based on 65 reviews, with an average of 5.5/10.[3] The website's critics consensus reads, "When it comes to the subculture of soccer thugs, Green Street Hooligans lacks sufficient insight, and instead comes off as a Fight Club knock-off."[3] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 55 out of 100 based on 22 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[6]
Roger Ebert gave the film a very favourable review,[7] while the BBC described it as "calamitous".[8] E! Online said while it is "full of exciting and immediate camerawork, visceral bone-crunching thrills and stout performances", it is also "saddled with a predictable storyline and such feckless dialogue that you can't help but view the whole thing as an exercise in stupidity".[9] Lead star Hunnam's attempted Cockney accent was derided by many critics as the worst in film history.[10]
Green Street won several awards including Best Feature at the LA Femme Film Festival,[11] Best of the Fest at the Malibu Film Festival,[12] and the Special Jury Award and Audience Award at the SXSW Film Festival.[13]
The film was nominated for the William Shatner Golden Groundhog Award for Best Underground Movie. Other nominated films were Neil Gaiman's and Dave McKean's MirrorMask, the award-winning baseball documentary Up for Grabs and Opie Gets Laid.[14]
Green Street 2: Stand Your Ground was released straight-to-DVD in March 2009. The film does not star most of the main cast of the first film but rather focuses on Ross McCall, who played Dave in the first film. The plot has Dave, who was caught at the fight at the end of the first film, in a prison where he must fight to survive.
Green Street 3: Never Back Down was released straight-to-DVD in the UK on 21 October 2013, starring Scott Adkins from The Expendables 2. Danny Harvey (Adkins) has spent all of his life fighting - in the playground, on the football pitch, and then heading up the West Ham firm the Green Street Elite (GSE). After having turned his back from violence fourteen years prior, Danny is thrust back into the GSE. Younger brother Joey, played by Billy Cook, is killed in an organised fight against a rival firm and Danny is desperate to seek revenge for his brother's death. Danny returns to the GSE and his past, the only way he knows to find out who killed his younger brother.
Although Pete tries to get Matt to stay behind, he allows him to tag along. From that moment on, the Alpha and Omega become nearly inseparable. Pete's close knit friends are not so accepting, however, when Matt seems to be invited to not only their favorite pub but to football (aka soccer in the US) games. It is one particular football game that changes not only the views of Pete's friends but how Matt views Pete. After watching the West Ham United v Birmingham City match, Matt decides to go home instead of hanging with the group after the game. On his way, Matt soon realizes he is being followed and is accosted by some thugs. He is relieved when Pete and the gang appear and a bloody fight ensues. It is during this fight that Matt discovers this is no ordinary skirmish and Pete is no ordinary rebellious punk. He is brutally introduced into the world of 'firms,' football team followers that show their loyalty by finding ways to humiliate the other team's firm and vicious fighting in the streets. And Pete? Leader of the GSE, Green Steet Elite 'firm'.
While most of Pete's 'firm' begin to grudgingly respect Matt after he proves himself in a brutal fight, Bovver, Pete's closest mate seems to seeth with jealousy. He feels that Matt, who is American, cannot be trusted and even goes as far as to accuse Pete and Matt of being gay since they are always seen together. Pete being the bold leader that he is defends Matt and tells Bovver that he is getting tired of his accusations and wasted energy. However, Bovver's animosity proves fatal...
One reason I gave this movie a 5 out of 5 star rating is because of the two lead actors. After Elijah Wood starred in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, there is no doubt that he could have continued to do high budget movies with fluffy scripts (not saying LOTR is fluffy). Instead, Wood chose to carve his own path in the acting world by picking scripts that challenged him. I think I read a review from a critic that said Elijah Wood was not a good casting choice for Green Street Hooligans because he seemed out of place. Umm, well, I must disagree because...isn't that the point? The movie is about an American Harvard student that moves to England and gets involved in the violent, mysterious world of football firms. Elijah Wood IS American and in real life would seem out of place if he were to go over to England for a visit. I mean the movie wouldn't have been believable if they had chosen..say, Orlando Bloom to play the part of Matt Muckner. Sometimes I really wonder about about critics...
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