Thug life with Nick Love

Rating: 3/10 (2 May 2015)

Nick Love has to be one of the shoddiest directors working in Britain today. All of his films have a depressing, fatalistic air to them, lacking in decent characters and character intrigue. All of them feel slightly false, in that there's something hollow about them. When you see somebody acting in a Nick Love film, you always feel that they're acting rather than believing in the character.
This is my fourth Love film, following on from THE BUSINESS (poor), OUTLAW (hugely disappointing) and THE SWEENEY (acceptable at best). It's the simplistic story of a football hooligan and the friends and rivals in his life. The film boasts an early, career-making turn from Cockney geezer Danny Dyer, who's frankly annoying in this one, playing alongside the likes of Dudley Sutton and Tamer Hassan.
Love's own script is the worst thing about this. Unsurprisingly he has an air for thuggish-sounding dialogue but the dialogue is just random expletive-filled insults throughout. It's hardly Tarantino, more like a load of juvenile nonsense from somebody with a clear lack of talent. THE FOOTBALL FACTORY is the kind of film that makes you despair for state of the British film industry.