Star Spangled Beating.

Rating: 7/10 (11 December 2010)

Green Street (AKA: Green Street Hooligans) is directed by Lexi Alexander and stars Elijah Wood, Charlie Hunnam and Claire Forlani. It's co-written by Alexander, Josh Shelov and former football hooligan turned author Dougie Brimson. Plot sees American college student Matt Buckner (Wood) expelled from Harvard after drugs are found in the room he shares with the popular son of the powerful Van Holden family. With time on his hands, Matt decides to visit his sister Shannon (Forlani) in England and falls in with her brother-in-law Peter (Hunnam); the leader of notorious football hooligan firm The Green Street Elite. Soon enough Matt finds himself running with the firm, finding an outlet for his frustrations whilst learning about trust and loyalty. But how far is he prepared to go? And what implications are around the corner for those involved, and those close to them?.
Ah, the football hooligan, a some what popular topic for translation to film and book on a yearly basis; in the UK. To America, tho, the concept of gangs beating the tar out of each other in the name of the football team you support: is most assuredly absurd. Enter Lexi Alexander and the team who sat around the table and said " lets educate them darn Yanks on the subject, lets get Frodo Baggins involved and thrust him into the machismo fuelled world of football violence", cue some stroking of beards and finally the green light for Green Street was well and truly lit. So a hot topic movie that's adding an interesting continental slant, then?.
The football hooligan film has had some decent enough productions over the years, film's like Nick Love's remake of The Firm and Philip Davis' excellent offering ID, have interesting observations on the subject at hand. Green Street, while following the clichÃ©s ad infinitum, offers up a bone crunching glimpse of a dangerous, yet wholly addictive underworld. Yet it has the same problem that many of the other similar themed film's has, namely it muddies the lines of being a rose tinted admiration or a damning indictment. Sure the outcome here is the same as the others, it always ends in tears and misery for someone, the overriding message is, hey guys, football hooliganism is really bad; not just for society, but for yourselves too. Yet the visceral violence (the fights are very well constructed by Alexander) has an exhilaration to it that borders on glamorisation, while the thread of Matt's transformation from meek college boy into spine growing ass kicker, is giving off what sort of moral message? Exactly.
So do we learn anything new from Green Street? No, and that's a shame because Alexander has done a good job of putting the viewer in the mix and she's at least tried something different with the American angle. She's also garnered some good performances from the cast. Wood has come in for some criticism for his performance, yet he's played it exactly as written. He's meant to be a guy who goes thru an unbelievable transformation, it's a known fact that many football hooligans have great professional jobs and that some were once mild mannered intelligent scholars. That his character doesn't sit right in the topic is not his fault, he plays the role perfectly. Of the others, Hunnam is charismatic and Leo Gregory is annoyingly memorable as right hand man Bovver, while Geoff Bell is outright scary as Millwall thug leader Tommy Hatcher. Rafe Spall (Hot Fuzz/Sean of the Dead) also turns in a notable piece of work. Forlani does well enough with what she has got, but considering she is the sole female axis in the plot her screen time is not enough, while Marc Warren as an important character (husband of Shannon, brother of Pete & ex leader of the firm) is sadly unbelievable.
Mixed messages unbound and sign posted from the off, Green Street is hardly one to recommend to those venturing into the source material for the first time. For those interested in a problem that refuses to go away, however? It's very much one to put on your to see list. 6.5/10