It Almost Gets to the Essence of Soccer Hooliganism

Rating: 8/10 (27 February 2007)

There are one or two things that this film does not get right. The "firm" of Chelsea receive the news that they have drawn Millwall in the cup. For those who do not know much about English soccer, let me tell you that Millwall fans have had a reputation for violent conduct since as far back as I can remember (the mid 1960s), and Chelsea fans have been known to get into a brawl or two on occasions! Here is a minor point. We have the Chelsea fans liberally using rhyming slang, (from London's East End), whereas Chelsea's supporters are predominantly from North London, where I have never ever heard rhyming slang used in my eighteen years living there.
The other thing I found wrong with this film is that there were no scenes at the matches. (This may have been caused by budget constraints.) And no one seems to talk much about football: they only talk about taking on Millwall's firm. This reinforces the popular misconception that football hooligans care nothing about football, and that they are not real fans. They ARE real fans. They DO care about their team and about football.
Those minor faults aside, I found that the motivation for hooliganism - that it is fun and there is an adrenaline rush - was absolutely correct.
Dudley Sutton was great as always, and the star of the show was Frank Harper. (Yes, there really are hooligans his age.) I found the practical jokes funny All in all I would recommend this film and have given it a high mark.
If you are wondering what a "sigh" is, as in Frank Harper saying to other characters, "You SIGH!", I am reliably informed that it is short for "Simple Simon."