West Ham till I die,
I'm West Ham till I die,
I know I am I'm sure I am,
West Ham till I die...
Elijah Wood, plays Matt Bruckner, an American who has just been kicked out of Harvard and goes over to live with his sister in England. There he is introduced to his brother-in-laws brother, Charlie, who introduces him to the world of West Ham football (not soccer!) and to the world of the hooligans.
The dialogue seems authentic and sharp and the boys talk in Cockney rhyming slang. The football songs are sung in in the pub as the boys get ready in their pre-game rituals. After the game the real action starts as the rival groups fight it out.
After seeing his first game Matt is heading home as the others go off to fight, but the rival "firm" had seen him with the West Ham boys and come after him. Luckily Charlie and the boys come to the rescue. When Matt takes part in the action he becomes one of the boys. Being that it's Hollywood, Matt who had never fought before, begins fighting like Spiderman and he likes the action.
Every football team has a firm and some have two. West Ham may have a mediocre football club, but they have a first rate firm - The GSE - The Green Street Elite.
Matt soon begins to get caught up in the adrenaline rush of the hooligan life style. It's almost like living in the Old Wild West as you plot your next caper to embarrass the rival firms. When West Ham draws Miljwall in the FA Cup, the bitter rivals will meet for the first time in ten years. Charlie's brother, the former leader of the firm, gets drawn back in and almost killed while trying to help out. Suddenly, all the glamor has gone out of the life style.
An Americanized version of The Football Factory that had come out the year before, this movie presents more of a Hollywood version of hooliganism, but it is still nasty and brutal. The movie which for a while seemed to be glorifying the hooliganism, finishes by pointing out how senseless it really all is.
Barely a soccer ball being kicked but still a very good football movie.
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