It failed, cringeworthy, seriously

Rating: 1/10 (12 September 2006)

I remember when this came out. Elijah did it right after the Lord of the Rings and wanted to show versatility, and the producers must have rubbed their hands. I also remember they insisted it was striving to give a true depiction of how hooligans run in the modern game and was in no way intending to glamourise violence. Bollards. Of course they are - from the balletic, unconvincing fights with slow-mo exploding blood packs, to the finale with a rip-off of Brothers in Arms gently playing - this was trying to show a really tricky subject matter with really weak writing. Forget realism - I am not hard but no matter how angry Elijah Wood got I would flatten him in three, and so could anyone he came up against in the film, including his sister (despite his Hollywood haymaker swing).
This film was ruined for me in the first 5 minutes by Charlie Hunnam's embarrassing cockney accent!! No seriously, the film had me cringing in amazement but I stuck with it so I was fully educated enough to ruin it. I thought the guy was American or Canadian or something, and related to the director. There's got to be a reason - I mean, is there still a Dick Van Dyke speech school for bad cockenee?
Some of the proper London boys in the film with smaller parts would have done a loads better job than the two main guys.
As it is, they probably couldn't ever show their face at the footie now out of shame of being in this piece of cr&p.
Only thing it achieved by accident? Failing in portraying them as some kind of heroes, and showing them as the thick blokes they are.