Green Street Hooligans

Greet Street Hooligans is essentially a film about the knuckle-dragging troglodyte assholes that make the world a slightly crappier place to live in. Yes, it’s that world of macho male brotherhood bullshit with rudimentary moral codes that define "honour” and "trust” within a group of primates who use violence to resolve conflict. The film acts as a sort of hybrid of The Warriors and Fight Club, if they were scattered with footie-obsessed hooligans at the forefront. It goes through the motions of a professional film, with an introduction, conflict, climax and conclusion, along with a full character arc, but feels too familiar and is often too frustrating to ever really get off the ground and have a lasting impact. The performances are passable and direction from Lexi Alexander is relatively consistent — despite her belief that shaking the camera around makes a scene "edgier” — but lack of star-power or an ability to engage the audience on an emotional level might explain the years this film spent sitting on a shelf before eventually winding up on DVD. After being forced to take the rap for his drug-addicted roommate at Harvard, Matt Buckner (Elijah Wood) gets expelled and runs off to visit his sister Shannon (Claire Forlani) in England. Finding friendship with an in-law (Charlie Hunnam), Matt winds up becoming involved with an underground gang of hooligans who celebrate league football games by getting drunk and beating the crap out of rival gangs. Once it comes out that Matt was a journalism student at Harvard, the gang feel betrayed, fearing exposure and decide to step up their actions another notch. The gritty fight sequences and male camaraderie will likely appeal to fans of dick-swinging, Y-Chromosome empowerment films but the overall message of standing up for oneself, even if it means resorting to violence, is far too glib and juvenile to fly with anyone else. The DVD comes with a Terence Jay music video and a brief featurette with actor interviews that looks to have been shot for television back when this film was finding limited theatrical release in 2005.