Great film ..... for people who know nothing about football

Rating: 1/10 (17 September 2006)

There is only one good thing I can say about this film, after about two hours it ends and you can forget all about it. Everything in it is laughable to anyone who has ever been to a football match. The story line is about as weak as the acting, and the way Elijah Wood strolls away at the end singing about West Ham makes most normal people want to vomit.
There are so many things which just don't make sense (How is one of the firm a pilot? Why does the hobbit look down on his roommate for doing drugs while firms are notoriously linked with it? (ofcourse not mentioned in this Hollywood film who want you to be on the side of the "goodies" the GSE) why is the top bot of the firm an Ozzie? and finally why do we care what happens to any of them? After watching the football factory I thought it was a shame not to have any real football footage in it, but after seeing how appalling it looks in Green Street you realise Nick Love got it right omitting any shots of a match.
Hooliganism is a dangerous topic to cover for any film maker as hooligans aren't really the stereotypical Hollywood good guys, yet Green Street tries to make us like them and think of them as the comic book heroes. People might feel sorry for what happens to Pete but think back to the start of the movie where he says something anti semitic to the Totenham fans. He then proceeds to beet one of them with a bin, which would probably have killed them in real life. Is it really such a bad thing that this obviously racist thug dies? The film does a good job in getting you on his side and at the end you do feel sorry, but if you think about it afterwords, a lot of that sympathy goes.
Having said all of that I'd still recommend that you watch it so that when you next watch a bad film, you'll realise it could be a lot worse.