The Football Factory

with Danny Dyer, Frank Harper, Tamer Hassan
Directed by Nick Love
Written by John King
(Momentum Pictures/Vertigo Films)
by Sarah Katz

Violence, drugs, football (the non-American kind) and sex. This is what The Football Factory promises. Well, two out of four ain’t bad, right? While the entire film is based around football, there are never any actual games shown. And there’s no sex. There was a bit of talk about sex, and one scene with a lame attempt at getting some, but none was had. No wonder these football hooligans are so fucking ticked off! And I’m sure with the amount of blow they snorted, their dicks were probably shrunken and debilitated beyond belief.

But I digress.

The film was okay, entertaining throughout the first three quarters, but then it hit a wall that’s all too familiar. The Moral Dilemma. Danny Dyer, as main character Tommy Johnson, starts having a breakdown, realizing how much shit he’s gotten into with his Chelsea Firm (fan club) and all the fights he’s engaged in. You’d think he’d learn his lesson. But no, people have to die and get the shit beaten out of them first. And then you still aren’t quite sure if he’s learned the lesson. So what’s the point?

All of the PR people backing this movie refer to is as a cross between Snatch, Trainspotting, Fight Club, and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Yeah, right, and my newest band sounds like a cross between Joni Mitchell and early Metallica. The only similarities that Football Factory has with Snatch and Lock, Stock… is the UK factor. Trainspotting, well, there’s coke instead of heroin, but even then, coke isn’t a main factor of the movie, fighting is. So it must be just like Fight Club then, right? Wrong. Fight Club was a) good, b) original, c) a film that had a good ending.
(www.thefootballfactory.com)