Green Street Hooligans

There seems to be a theme in my movie watching over the last couple of weeks.  English Hooliganisim.  Last week I caught This Is England.  A movie more about English skinhead culture than football hooliganisim, but still a very similar culture.  Both really focus on that desire to be accepted, and loved by some kind of familial group, even if that group is totally disfunctional and driven by violence. 

The plot of Green Street Holligans revolves around Matt, he just got expeled from Harvard.  He took the fall for a rich ass hole and so goes to visit his sister in England.  As soon as he gets there he meets Paul, the leader of a football firm called the Green Street Elite.  Their basic day to day revolves around getting off of work, going to the pub, drinking a shit load, and then going to football matches and getting into fights with the other football firms.

And these aren’t cute fights.  They are really taking it to each other.  Matt gets caught up in it, because for the first time in his life he is part of something that is bigger than him, even if the goal is only to build street reputation, it means something to him.  Naturally everything goes poor in the end with the introduction of the GSE’s rival Millwall and a grudge that goes back over a decade.

One thing that really tied This is England to this movie for me is a scene where they are about to go to a match, and there is a shot of the front of a building, hanging from the windows are two flags, one is the Union Jack, the other is St. George’s Cross, a really powerful symbol in This is England.  That idea that the Hooligan culture is very similar and has a lot of ties to that skinhead culture portrayed in This is England hit hard.  There is even a scene where some of the Millwall guys beat someone up in a restaurant and one wacks up to the other and says, “That Paki that owns the place called the cops, we need to fuck off right now.”  That kind of passive racisim could only be a hold over from the National Front movement portrayed in The is England.

If you can handle the violence, and you are just as fascinated with the hooligan culture, and football culture, you are in for a good movie, if a little predictable.  I recomend it, and if you want a double does of English tough guy, pick up This is england and watch them back to back.  Good stuff.