I know this hooligan drama has been out for a while on DVD, but I’ve only just got round to watching it. Was it worth the wait? Sort of. I enjoyed it, in the same way that I enjoyed The Firm (the Gary Oldman one, not the Tom Cruise blockbuster) and The Football Factory. Football hooligans may be idiots, but they are fascinating idiots.
DVD review: Green Street continued…
The film’s biggest problem is its casting. Elijah Wood is a solid actor but he’s miscast as Matt,
the Harvard dropout-turned-West Ham hoolie. He’ll always be Frodo to
me, and I can’t see Frodo being too handy with a Stanley knife, no
matter how smart he is with an elvish blade. Charlie Hunnam, who plays
Wood’s brother-in-law, the leader of a famous West Ham firm (the GSE,
or Green Street Elite – based, presumably on the real ICF) is also out
of his depth. His ‘cock-er-knee’ accent is hilariously rubbish, plus
he’s too much of a pretty boy to be believed as the leader of a big
firm.
But, as I said before, I did enjoy it. The other characters, including
the excellent Marc Warren as Hunnam’s older brother, were believable
and the story ticked along nicely. The cinematographer did a good job of capturing the darker side of London too. It wasn’t a phoney American view of our capital. I’m glad I didn’t go to the cinema
to see it, but it’s worth renting on DVD (also playing on Sky Movies at
the moment, I think). BUY IT