Soccer Movie MomSoccer movie or football film about hooligans
I had resolved not to review another hooligan movie, but Cass is not one of those hit-and-tell stories that glorifies football supporter violence. Instead, this gripping film shows how a young Black man rises above the hatred that surrounds him. In the case of Cass Pennant, hatred comes from many sources: his skin color, which he tries to scrub off as a child, the competition with supporter firms, and a meaningless life of toil, from which violence is an emotional escape.
Is there life after football hooliganism? This short documentary on Jason Marriner tells us, if nothing else, that hooligans retain many fond memories, most of which as perpetrators they can’t really talk about on screen.
And the other reason they can’t talk about it is because they want you to read their book instead.
When this Netflix original first pops up on your TV, the upper left corner warns “sex, nudity, language, smoking”. That warning is also an able synopsis of this Italian hooligan movie.
Who knew that soccer hooligan movies are a genre? And that they have been so successful that 2014 was a good time for someone to spoof them? The Hooligan Factory sat in my Amazon Prime watchlist for quite awhile because I assumed it was just another hooligan movie.
After The Football Factory, I swore I wouldn’t watch any more Hooligan movies. They seem to be a genre of violence, sex, and drugs, with a little bit of football as context. As in, we gotta go to a West Ham game on the way to the violence, sex, and drugs we are going to do.
And I don’t understand why it’s always West Ham hooligans.
Thinking of going to WC 2018? Watch Russia’s Hooligan Army. It may change your mind, especially if you are British and male. This BBC TV documentary starts with news footage of the Russian hooligan attacks at Euro 2016. Then, it turns the spigot on full blast in sensationalist interviews with Russian supporters group leaders, who crow over their victories and ready their members for the next round on the home soil of WC 2018.
After suffering the mindless violence of The Football Factory, I was reluctant to watch Green Street Hooligans. But what a surprise– Hooligans completely sucks you in.
The Firm was an episode of a BBC TV series in 1989. A young 30ish Gary Oldman stars as Bexie — a middle class father, real estate agent, weekend soccer player, and the boss of a hooligan gang.
I almost never watch war movies or dramas, but watching the 2004 British movie The Football Factory was like watching a war movie without weapons.
