Hoolligans: the soap opera

Rating: 3/10 (5 March 2015)

The movie get so many things wrong or depicts them in such a hackneyed way it's hard to take it seriously or to fathom where all the raving reviews came from.
Apparently one of the most violent firms in English football have no qualms about letting in a preppy American student with zero credentials and negative knowledge about football...
But that's fine, because those hooligans aren't terrible people when not dealing with football... One of them is an airline pilot, another one has the odd position of History AND P.E. teacher at a primary school (unrelated subjects, but go figure... those pesky London schools) and he's even allowed to have random strangers play with/give lectures to his kids...
Alas, all good things come to an end when the jealous henchman decides it's time to betray his pals and strikes a deal (for what?) with the leader of their/his fiercest and most deranged rivals... Things take a turn for the worse, the traitor has another change of heart and comes back for the save.
Frodo can now go back to the U.S., a tougher man, but also more mature and fair, because that's the lesson he learned while bonding with a bunch of friendly psychopaths in London.
Last, but surely not least, the hooligans scene depicted in the movie would have vaguely been credible in the mid 80s, with the bleak neighbourhoods, the stereotypical "working class England" setting and, mainly, the complete absence of stadium security that has been enforced since English Football has become a multi-millionaire business that can't be disrupted by a bunch of maladjusted thugs.
P.S. The scene where one of the GSE mocks the rival fans on the pitch dressed as a steward (or being one?!) sums it up pretty well... In contemporary football you couldn't pull it off, not even on the crappiest amateur field, let alone at a Premier League game. You'd not even get close to the stands and you'd be filmed by security cameras from 10 different angles. And no more stadium for you... But apparently the movie takes place in an alternate dimension where no such things exist.