This review has been set up to post What has happened not what is going to happen. This review does not express the views of the Admin and is not intended to promote violence . Contains mild spoiler.

Known in the US as Hooligans or Green Street Hooligans (having been filmed as The Yank), German-born writer-director Alexander's debut is an everyday tale of streetfighting, designer-label-sporting, drink-fuelled British manhood. Our unlikely point of entry into this subculture is a well-heeled American journalism student, Matt Buckner (Elijah Wood) who we first meet getting unjustly kicked out of Harvard. Travelling to London for an overdue visit with his sister Shannon (Claire Forlani), Matt almost immediately falls in with a gang of sharply-dressed West-Ham-supporting hooligans - the (fictional) once-notorious 'Green Street Elite' led by Shannon's volatile brother-in-law Pete (Charlie Hunnam).

The resulting sub-Football Factory affair (both pics being pale copies of Alan Clarke's The Firm) is very much "a game of two halves" - except rather than being a good half followed by a bad half or vice versa, script problems mean you get convincing/surprising/engaging/inspired stuff one minute then dodgy/ludicrous/absurd/predictable stuff the next. If Green Street were a footballer, it'd be Duncan Ferguson of Everton: big and expensive, laddishly good-looking if not notably bright, and frustratingly mercurial in that he's capable of powerful and precise movements one minute then a jawdroppingly clumsy own-goal the next.

Hunnam's "performance" definitely falls into the O.G. category. The picture pretty much stops dead in its tracks every time he opens his mouth and this strangulated """"""Cockney"""""" accent comes out - it's quite the lamest thing we've heard in a mainstream movie since Josh Hartnett in Blow Dry.

Newcastle-born rough-edged pretty-boy Hunnam looks the part, resplendent in blond buzzcut and latest Stone Island fashions; and he can act - was OK in Queer As Folk and Nicholas Nickleby. But something has clearly gone very wrong somewhere along the line here, not least his omnipresent,  cartoonish, bowlegged swagger. Could it be that Alexander's Teutonic roots meant she simply didn't hear how wrong Hunnam sounds throughout? Even if this was the case, why on earth didn't the other actors "sort it"?

Reportedly some kind of kickboxing world champ in her time, Alexander - who co-wrote the (somewhat questionable and evasive) script with uberhoolie-turned-scribe Dougie Brimson - handles the numerous "ruck" scenes pretty well, albeit somewhat flashily: shuttery-juddery editing a la Saving Private Ryan; artily discoloured cinematography; shamelessly lad-oriented rabble-rousing soundtrack. And she has a definite ITK feel for the GSE's pint-swilling, leg-pulling bloke-camaraderie - even the odd-couple friendship between Pete and Matt has the tang of authentic banter.

It also helps that the minor tough-nut roles are notably well-cast - indeed, Geoff Bell, Kieran Bew, Rafe Spall, Ross McCall, Christopher Hehir and co often look as though they're enjoying themselves a little too much). The ever-reliable Henry Goodman, meanwhile, makes the most of his extended cameo as Matt's seldom-seen dad - somewhat ironic that a picture so weighed down by one atrocious accent should feature a pair of British thesps (Goodman and Forlani) who so regularly and so effortlessly pass for Yank.

Man Of The Match by some way is, however, Leo Gregory as the tormented, sexually-conflicted "Bovver" - an unfortunate Richard-Allen-ish moniker, but he's much more believable than the actor's slightly shaky Brian Jones from Stoned. In that film, you wanted to see rather less of Jones and rather more of the intriguing characters caught in his orbit (i.e. those played by David Morrissey and Paddy Considine). Here, the picture clicks up several gears whenever "Bovver" is on screen - which isn't anywhere near often enough.

It's a terrific, thoroughly harrowed, shot-nerved physical performance - the last thing we see him do on screen is a simple gesture that's simply breathtaking. Luckily for Alexander, this grace-note easily compensates for a clunky back-in-the-States coda, culminating in Wood's deeply embarrassing rendition of "Hammers" anthem I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles: "They fly so high / nearly reach the sky / then like my dreams / they fade and die," indeed.

Neil Young
11th/12th September, 2005

GREEN STREET : [5/10] : aka Hooligans / Green Street Hooligans : USA 2005 : Lexi ALEXANDER : 109 mins
seen at Cineworld cinema, Sunderland (UK), 11th September 2005 - public show