Ahoy, squirts! Quint here, typing away about 15 minutes from the beginning of Jet Li's UNLEASHED after a long day of SXSW. Yay for Wi-Fi in the Alamo Drafthouse! Anyway, I saw HOOLIGANS myself a few hours ago and it is everything this review says and more. It's a damn good flick that everyone I know enjoyed. I'll be reviewing that (hopefully) after UNLEASHED, but until then, here's another review to hold you over! Enjoy!
Hey Harry, Just attended a screening of "Hooligans" and thought I should share something about this film:
Hooligans will break your face.
Honestly, this film is one of the hardest things I've seen in a theater in a long time. That's not to say that "Fight Club" was tame, or that "Snatch" was cuddly soft (It would have been a much different film if Snatch was cuddly soft),but Hooligans is right up there with them, delivering a pull no punches journey into the European football culture. A great film with a great cast.
No spoilers, I promise:
The story is fairly simple, an American college journalism student (Elijah Wood, saucer eyed as ever) is expelled form Harvard for a drug charge. Rather than return home to his distant father (already a respected journalist), Frodo moves in with his sister (Claire Florlani. *Sigh* Always pretty to me). Florlani lives in Merry old England with her loving husband and a cute chubby baby.
Soon North is introduced to the loving husband's little brother, played by Charlie Hunnam (Nicholas Nickelby. Fucking Nicholas Nickelby?!? Fighting?!?). Soon Radio Flyer finds himself in the rough and tumble world of "Firms". Each football team has a firm, and Nickelby is the leader of his own firm. He introduces his new Yankee buddy to all of his pirate-talking friends. Hilarity ensues.
Ok, by "Hilarity" I mean violence. And trust me, there is some good "Hilarity" in this film. Crashing into glass, beer bottles to the head, elbows, knees, headbutts, punches, I think I even saw a bite or two. And it's not like a well-choreographed thing, either. It genuinely looks like these people hate each other. Like, really hate the fuck out of each other.
I learned a lot of things about English people from this movie, but the most important thing I learned was this: English people talk shit better than anyone. I don't know if I 'm just not used to hearing the word cunt, but that word strikes a cord in me. And they don't let up with the insults at all. I guess in America we kind of take turns insulting each other, take the yo' mama game, for example. It's kind of a you insult me, I get you back better, then you go again. Not in England, boy. They start making fun of yo' mama, then they keep going. Like, they don't give you time to respond. By the time you've thought of something clever, they've moved on to insulting your dad and your siblings and your unborn children. I'm pretty sure if you let them keep going they'll trace your lineage back a couple hundred years.
This could have been a very bad film if it wasn't for Charlie Hunnam. It's funny, I mentioned "Fight Club" and "Snatch", and Brad Pitt was great in both of those. Well, Hunnam is like a young Brad Pitt in this film. Not to say he's unoriginal, quite the contrary. More to the point of being able to hold your interest. Brad Pitt is one of those guys that could get his face beaten in by a fat italian mook (Fight Club) and then turn around and be on the cover of Us Weekly. Hunnam has that same quality. A scrapper with cheekbones that could slice mozzarella. He's the glue of the piece. Elijah Wood is the audience, Charlie Hunnam is the guy we know is trouble, but we hang out with him anyway because he makes your life more interesting. If they got Heath Ledger instead, this thing would have blown. Conversley, if they would have got Hunnam for "A Knight's Tale"... it probably still would have blown.
"Hooligans" is great. Edgy and completely original. Plus, there's a great lesson about testing the boundaries we set for ourselves. You like manly movies? You like new ground? You like Hooligans.
Take care of your leg, you only got two.
-PLB
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