An engrossing descent into the grimy side of English football

Rating: 8/10 (9 July 2018)

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.