Product Description

A wrongfully expelled Harvard undergrad moves to London, where he is introduced to the violent underworld of soccer hooliganism.

DVD Features:
Documentary:The Making of Hooligans
Music Video:"One Blood" Music Video by Terence Jay

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #937 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2006-06-13
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 109 minutes

Amazon.com
After the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Elijah Wood could've opted for further big budget epics, but took a sharp left turn with this better-than-average B-movie. Released just after Everything is Illuminated, another offbeat entry, Wood plays journalism student Matt Buckner. In the prologue, he's expelled from Harvard when his over-privileged roommate sets him up to take the fall for his own misdeeds. With nowhere to go, Matt decides to visit his sister, Shannon (Claire Forlani), in London. He's already got a chip on his shoulder when he falls under the sway of Shannon's brother-in-law, Pete (Charlie Hunnam), head of West Ham's football "firm," the Green Street Elite. Matt soon gets caught up in their thuggish antics—to tragic effect. In her feature debut, German-born Lexi Alexander makes a mostly convincing case for the attractions of violence to the emotionally vulnerable, as opposed to the emotionally numb pugilists of the more satirical Fight Club. Unlike David Fincher (by way of Chuck Palahniuk), she plays it straight, except for the stylized fight sequences. Consequently, humor is in short supply, but the young Brit cast, especially Leo Gregory as the surly Bovver, is charismatic and Wood makes his character as believable as possible, i.e. he may seem miscast, but that's the point. Although there's no (direct) correlation between the two, Green Street makes a fine taster for Bill Buford's Among the Thugs, the ultimate dissection of the hooligan mentality. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Customer Reviews

A Yank Feels the Lure of Soccer Hooliganism.
"Green Street Hooligans" sets a family drama and coming-of-age tale in the world of football (soccer) hooliganism. Matt Buckner (Elijah Wood) was a promising journalism student before he was expelled from Harvard University over his roommate's cocaine stash. Suddenly aimless, Matt wanders to London to visit his sister Shannon (Claire Forlani) and her British husband Steve (Marc Warren). When Matt tags along to a soccer game with Steve's brother Pete (Charlie Hunnam), he finds that there is a lot more to soccer culture than the game on the field. Pete is a member of a football firm or gang called the Green Street Elite (GSE). Firms are organizations of fanatic fans who battle other firms for reputation and dominance -by beating the crap out of each other. Matt is attracted to the high energy, danger, and physicality of the GSE and embraces the lifestyle. But eventually word gets around that he might be a journalist - and hooligans hate coppers and journalists.

I couldn't say how accurately "Green Street Hooligans" represents the dynamics of football firms or the relationships of their members. But the film does provide a window into a subculture that is common in the UK and South America, where soccer reigns supreme, but which Americans may never have heard of. Contrary to the American cocept of gangsters, soccer hooligans are neither Mafioso nor errant youth. They are grown, middle-class men who function perfectly well in normal jobs. But outside of work and domestic obligations, they are completely lawless. They happily adopt a brutality that could leave them dead or maimed in the blink of an eye. "Green Street Hooligans" requires some suspension of disbelief to accept more mundane behavior. Would Steve really send his naïve Yank brother-in-law to a soccer game with his estranged hooligan brother? No. That kind of illogic is common in this film. But the culture of hooliganism, the allure of their violence, is at the same time stupid and fascinating.

The DVD (Warner 2006): "The Making of Hooligans" (6 min) is not about making the movie. It is a series of interviews with actors Elijah Wood, Claire Forlani, Charlie Hunnam, director Lexi Alexander and producer Deborah Del Prete which discuss the characters and the phenomenon of football firms. There is a music video for the song "One Blood" by Terence Jay, which sounds uncannily like the Dire Straits' song "Brother in Arms". Terence Jay also acts in the movie. He plays Matt's elite WASP Harvard roommate, the cokehead. Subtitles for the film are available in English, French, and Spanish.

Raw and Riveting
Although I do not follow the game of football (do not call it soccer) I was drawn to this movie because I like Charlie Hunnam and he did not disappoint in the role of Pete the leader of a group of football fanatics (or hooligans) who enjoy bashing heads and maiming the followers of the opposing teams. The movie starts out with Elijah Woods character (Matt) getting booted out of Harvard due to the actions of his roommate (your typical priviliged jerk) so he heads over to London to visit his sister who is married to Pete's brother Stephen. At first Pete and Matt do not hit it off since Matt is a Yank and rather conservative. A few pints later with the mates and Matt becomes a member of the hooligans. There are quite a few fight scenes, lots of blood, but the movie keeps you on edge throughout and the ending is both tragic yet justice is served.

Violent and Compelling Look at the London Underworld
Of everything written about this small film starring Elijah Wood and Charlie Hunnam, the most interesting is to see the lukewarm reactions from the UK side, which found the film is too violent, and dismissed it as implausible. And it must be admitted that they are complaining with some good reasons.

For the film is really violent, and Elijah Wood may be the least plausible choice for making a film about the hooligans, almost fanatic supporters of football team in England. Elijah Wood plays Matt, a Harvard college undergraduate student wrongly expelled because of his irresponsible roommate. Matt flies to the home of his married sister (Clair Forlani), and there meets his brother-in-law Pete (Charlie Hannam), devoted leader of the Green Street Elite, bunch of the hooligans supporting West Ham United.

The set-up part is contrived, but you should wait a while. Soon the film's story leads us to its gist, about how Matt (estranged from his father now in Kabul) finds his new existence in this underworld of the `Firm' and its hooliganism. The film does not fail to show the complexity of the characters. The members of the `Firm' have jobs to do when there is not a game (believe me nor not, one of them is an airplane pilot by profession), and not exactly bad guys at all, but when it comes to football games and the rivalry between the Firms, they turn fierce and unstoppable street fighters who have their own rules to follow. You cannot say the script is an in-depth study of hooligans, but still good enough to make us care its characters.

Besides its violent scenes, the criticism we hear against `Green Street Hooligans' is about its cast, Elijah Wood in particular. Yes, the star of blockbuster hit `Lord of the Rings.' Throughout `GSH' Elijah Wood never looks like a hooligan. For all Matt's repeated bloody fights, he still looks a visitor or outsider in the Green Street Elite, but that is the point of the film because he is there to provide the viewpoint from an outsider. And some UK reviewers complained about the accent of Charlie Hunnam. I don't know because I do not have much linguistic knowledge, but to me his acting as charismatic Pete looked very good (though Leo Gregory as discontented GSE member is more impressive, as you will see).

More serious problem with `Green Street Hooligans' is its incredible and too convenient coincidences in the story, which makes the whole film too melodramatic. Matt happens to have done two (or more) things, which results in a big problem. The far-fetched situation looks totally out of place among the gritty descriptions of hooliganism, and Claire Forlani's character always remains a typical lady-in-distress image, which is another cliché in the filmmaking. German-born director Lexi Alexander sticks to the realistic approach to the street fight sequences (with blood and dirty words), but she somehow is content with the autopilot direction when showing several episodes that are not directly related to hooligans.

But I was intrigued with the main story about the friendship between males, or kind of combat camaraderie depicted in `Green Street Hooligans.' I know this is not the only film about hooliganism - for example, `The Football Factory' and `The Firm' (starring Gary Oldman, not Tom Cruise) - but `Green Street Hooligans' is worth a look even though you don't know football for its strong and compelling main story.