Green Street Hooligans (2005)

Really Surprised!

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Though arguably exaggerated for storytelling means, 'Green Street' captures the grimy, gritty and uncomfortable side to pre-match, post-game English football. Cinematography is deliberately shaky and unspectacular to emphasise this realistic approach; techniques which credibly make the film better and harder to look away as you delve into a violent underworld.Following an American Harvard drop-out (wrongly expelled for something he didn't do), Elijah Wood's protagonist travels to the UK to finally visit his sister. It isn't long before events lead him to awkwardly navigate football hooliganism and ingratiate himself in an ugly atmosphere filled with coarse language and ultra-violence thanks to Charlie Hunnam's family tie. Gradually becoming assimilated in a gang that perpetually uses coarse language, crude slang, and derogatory verbal abuse, we, as the viewer, also find ourselves trespassing in a world we don't belong (or at least shouldn't). But its brutal, bare-knuckle street fights between rival football club supporters/gangs isn't the main attraction even if that is the headlining snare to lure in movie-goers searching for a lurid experience behind the scenes of a football game. The story becomes front and centre as the second act closes and the third begins, Elijah's Wood's journalist history threatens new-found friendships, high-stakes drama looms with the threat of reveals and bloody history between the central gangs, and the film shows us humanity deep within even the most despicable of people who initially warrant little of our time as they waste theirs revelling in others misery. 'Green Street' is well-cast, toughly written, and solidly acted to tempt anyone just curious of the football hooliganism scene, even when you realise this horrible side to life is not for you, but getting out isn't as easy as just walking away. 8/10.

There must be something redeeming about British football, but I have yet to find it. Media representations, both factual and fictional, seem largely concerned with bad behavior by young (and not so young) males. (To be fair, male American football fans aren't a whole lot better, just less violent.} Elijah Wood portrays Matt, a young American student at Harvard who is falsely accused of drug-dealing and expelled. That plot gets lost early on, but it does get him to London, where he bunks with his sister (Claire Forlani, a Brit, herself playing an American), now married to a Brit. Her brother-in-law, Pete (Charlie Hunnam), a football hooligan, is also on the scene. He is delegated to help Matt adjust to life in London, an assignment Pete is initially not thrilled about. Events spiral downhill from there. Wood is well-cast as the straight arrow Harvard boy who (for whatever reason) takes the fall for his well-connected, politically ambitious, drug dealer roommate. He is thrust into the violent Hooligan culture of London and takes to it. Hunnam, who has been criticized for his accent, realizes that film is an international commodity, and English is the language of commercially successful films. Actors have to be understood everywhere, not just locally. Most of his mates don't get that, and it makes much of the dialogue problematic. Forlani is given little to do and does little with it. This could have been a brilliant film; Wood always has the potential to make his vehicles be so. But it does not achieve that goal, and British football is the culprit. It is hard to sympathize with anything which finds its inspiration in a sport typified by the unruly behavior of its advocates.

Along the same kinda lines as 'The Football Factory' but nowhere near as gritty and in your face, this film suffers from a slight case of Hollywood glitz. Not just because Elijah Wood is in it, that is one reason of course, but the violence just seems more coordinated and setup, whilst the many British actors in the film all have rather hokey cockney accents which seem rather forced, some not all.The film centres around West Ham United Firm 'GSE: Green Street Elite' although the real firm is called 'ICF: Inner City Firm' and follows the guys around as they go to matches and plan on fights with rival firms. Nothing much different from other 'firm' flicks but the added plot of Yankee Wood who slowly fits in against his UK based sisters wishes and grows to enjoy the lifestyle.No one really that well known in the film accept Wood who is TOTALLY out of place in this type of flick but I guess that's the idea right. Only thing is you simply can't see Wood ever getting tough enough to do what he does in the film, never in a month of Sundays.Good entertainment but using allot of artistic license and second best to 'The Football Factory' and 'The Firm'...if your into these types of films.5/10

Green Street is a 2005 British-American independent drama film about football hooliganism. It was directed by Lexi Alexander and stars Elijah Wood and Charlie Hunnam. In the United Kingdom, it is called Green Street. In the United States, Australia and South Africa, the film is called Green Street Hooligans.After being wrongfully expelled from Harvard University, American Matt Buckner flees to his sister's home in England. Once there, he is befriended by her charming and dangerous brother-in-law, Pete Dunham, and introduced to the underworld of British football hooliganism. Matt learns to stand his ground through a friendship that develops against the backdrop of this secret and often violent world. 'Green Street Hooligans' is a story of loyalty, trust and the sometimes brutal consequences of living close to the edge.