A very well made movie about a bunch of really stupid people...

Rating: 4/10 (29 August 2006)

There are easily identifiable story lines going here: loyalty, revenge, self discovery, confidence, a couple of bits of mystery, and family. All the makings of a gripping story line that should make for a smashing film.
Except for the setting.
I am an American, and therefore a foreigner to what the rest of the world calls football. I have watched World Cup games, I have watched local level games (both on television and live) in Brasil, and have yet to have run across any trouble at all...although my friends who took me to the games in Brasil were very alert to signs of trouble on my behalf.
Being foreign to the 'culture' of what most of the world calls Football, this was a difficult movie to warm up to. To watch a group of seemingly intelligent people (including a teacher, a pilot, and our protagonist the not-quite-a-Harvard-grad) get so wound up to the point of such stupidity made it hard to get past that point and find anything redeeming about the rest of the movie.
If you can get your brain around what appear to fairly intelligent people willing to fight, damage, terrorize, kill and die for a football club they otherwise have absolutely no affiliation with, then you should enjoy the movie.
Or, if that description of our crew makes your eyes roll, save yourself the better part of two hours and watch something, no...ANYTHING else.
A Harvard student with a notable father gets expelled mostly by his roommate who is of course also a Harvard student with an even more notable father. Elijia Wood (Matt) decides to run to England where his sister now lives and has a family. Since sis's hubby (Steve) has already made plans for himself and lovely bride, our Yank gets pawned off on brother-in-laws brother, Pete.
This apparently isn't what anybody wants, but it starts our protagonist on his Odyssee of being thrust into a culture he has absolutely no knowledge of, including its violence and dedication.
Matt and Pete become fast friends, Pete introduces him to his group of friends including a required-member-who-doesn't-like-outsiders (Bovver). Matt continues to work really hard at fitting in, virtually forgetting all about his sister and family except for occasional scenes. Oh, and all these new friends really hate journalists and conveniently, Matt's notable father is a well known across the world journalist, and Matt was a journalism student, just to make things nice and snappy.
Since Pete and Steve both knew about this, and Steve wasn't happy at all with Pete for getting Matt "involved" in his gang, Steve takes it upon himself to save Matt from the wrath the rest of the gang (who eventually learn he's a journalist from a journalist family there to practice journalism on them) Steve goes to the gang's headquarters pub. Here we learn Steve is the somewhat legendary former leader of this gang, why Milwall hates them so much (or at least Milwall's gang leader, who by the way looks like he's only a couple of years away from retirement).
Of course, one of the gang who really, REALLY doesn't like outsiders (Bovver) goes to Milwall and tells them "hey, we got a journalist in our midst" but also that the former leader is now at their headquarters, this then instigates a penultimate climactic bar fight.
Which in turn instigates the real climactic fight, just not at a bar this time because it got destroyed in the penultimate climactic fight.
The wrap-up to all these story lines is a bit heavy handed, leaving the following ponderous points of plot: If the Milwall leader knew the name of the GSE leader he held a grudge against all these years (Steve), it doesn't seem that Steve was exactly living discreetly and staying under the radar. Seems he could have been found easily enough to exact revenge upon.
Once it is mentioned that Matt's sister and child "aren't safe here anymore", she's awfully cavalier about answering the front door and/or just leaving it wide open...not to mention she has to come find Matt at the real climactic fight and put both herself and baby in harms way just for drama.
Mixed in this mess are a few of moments that explains Matt's family that cumulatively cover almost 30 seconds.
The tale ends with Matt back in the States confronting his former roommate with his newfound violent confidence and sets him up, but conveniently leaves you to your own imagination as to how he uses the setup material because it only goes so far as to let you see it become obtained.
All this movie manages to do, to foreigners such as myself to not-American-football, is reinforce the negative stereotype that football fans are criminally insane. Knowing that stereotype of course doesn't fit the majority of fans, and knowing they don't always exist, doesn't make it any easier to watch this movie.