Couldn't take it seriously

Rating: 4/10 (8 September 2012)

I watched about the first 45 minutes of this movie. I switched it off when Elijah Wood is forced to play in goal in a 5-a-side match with a group of children during their PE class. The PE teacher is a member of a football "Firm" called the GSE or Green Street Elite, named after the street on which Upton Park is situated, Upton Park being West Ham football club's home stadium.
Wood plays an American college student who visits his sister in London and soon becomes friends with a group of West Ham supporters who happen to be heavily involved in football violence. At first they don't accept this college-educated American outsider as one of their own, but once he convinces them that the Karate Kid movies are based on him, they treat him as one of their own.
Although he has never been in a fight before, Elijah beats the hell out of one guy from the Tottenham firm in his first ever fight. I found this pretty hard to believe. Not to mention other little things like the aftermath of a football riot outside Bank tube station. There are no football stadiums anywhere near Bank tube station, and on weekends this area is almost deserted because it's right in the middle of London's financial district.
The other thing I couldn't take seriously was the horrendous cockney accent of the other main character. It sounded like one of those South Park accents that are deliberately bad just for comic effect. Some people might think the accent isn't that important, but I think it is very important. No matter what he says he might as well be saying "I'm not a cockney and I'm just reading a script". It simply didn't work.