Bloddy Terrific

Rating: 7/10 (13 July 2006)

From the start this film is both gripping and shocking. The opening sequence is of a bunch of football hooligans beating the living daylights out of each other in a very graphic fight.
The film is about Matt (Elijah Wood), who is wrongly kicked out of Harvard and goes to England to spend time with his sister. Once here he meets Pete (Charlie Hunnam), the leader of the ever so great 'GSE', the green street elite. Elijah is introduced to the rest of the gang and almost instantly his character changes from nice polite Harvard student, to violent, swearing, smoking, football hooligan. Which in itself makes for a gripping storyline The performances from all the cast not just Elijah and Charlie, is outstanding. There all believable and you could just imagine them actually being football hooligans. The director Lexi Alexander has done a great job portraying the reality behind hooliganism and it's truths. Unlike other hooligan films, this one portrays the characters as real people, with real jobs and real lives. And beating people up is just a common past-time.
This film definitely earns it's '18' certificate (R in USA). With very violent and graphic scenes and the word c**t used to hearts content. I think that this film will once and for all wipe the stereotypical view of englanders being tea drinking posh git's that the world thinks we are , and rather the violent uncontrollable rabble which we actually are. Which might be a bad thing.
I strongly recommend this film to everyone but mostly people who are fans of 'The football factory'. But a word of warning to the 'Yanks'. This film contains a lot of cockney riming slang, so it may be a bit awkward to understand at times, especially with the strong cockney accents. Except for Elijah of course.