RUCK! Hooliganism Hollywood-style

Rating: 2/10 (14 April 2011)

Elijah Wood fails to convince as a potential hooligan by being far too effete and elfin. His presence reminds me somewhat of that Comic Strip parody of Hollywood's attempts at British issues, STRIKE! with Al Pacino playing Arthur Scargill.
(Actually the more I think about it the more this whole film resembles STRIKE! with a cartoon villain and an inspirational ending so perhaps the makers should have named this one RUCK! and have the queen turn up at the end to grant a general amnesty.)
The script is noticeably awkward. The attempt to make this appeal to American audiences makes it seem as if two different films have been stuck together; the American side of things focuses on Elijah's relationship with his sister and his briefly visiting father seeming to be shoe horned in simply to get Hollywood backing. The framing sequence, too, of a man unjustly expelled from Harvard who finds the courage to stand up for himself in the end, a story we've seen many times before, is likewise designed for American taste.
The other side is England in all its brutal glory. This is better but hardly well written. It does attempt to show hooligans as more than cardboard cut-outs, with their own brand of integrity and even as more intelligent than is sometimes given credit and it tries to explore the sense of exhilaration that a fight engenders and how addictive it is. But many details do not ring true, such as Elijah being allowed to play football with the kids (he would have to be police vetted these days to be allowed anywhere near them, unfortunately) or why they get off the train early (the emergency stop leaves them conveniently at another station) to avoid a gang only to travel to same place to fight them. The menacing Millwall thug with an axe to grind against "the major" is straight out of central casting. He implausibly beats up bystanders and burns a pub down without much reason. Worst of all is the dialogue, actually embarrassing in parts and the battle royale finale is very contrived a la Hollywood.