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Green Street (2005)
Director: Lexi Alexander
Movie review
From Time Out London
It used to be nearly impossible for Brits to venture abroad without a chatty foreigner acknowledging our nationality by mock-clenching his fists and exclaiming, ‘Oh yes, football ’ooligans!’ But that was the ’80s. Does it take that long for cinema to catch up with the real world? No, we’ve already had ‘The Firm’, ‘ID’ and ‘Football Factory’ – all better films about football violence. This strong sense of redundancy aside, though, ‘Green Street’ never recovers from a fatal and, frankly, crazy premise. German director Lexi Alexander gives us Elijah Wood as Matt, a Harvard journalism drop-out who becomes a West Ham-supporting football hooligan while visiting his sister (Claire Forlani) in London. Harvard? Hooligan? Elijah Wood? I can understand Wood’s desire to ditch his freaky elf image, but this is beyond credible. And it gets worse. Charlie Hunnam (last seen writhing beneath Aiden Gillen in TV’s ‘Queer as Folk’) delivers a truly appalling performance as Pete, a home-grown Brit thug and Matt’s conduit into hooliganism. Pete is London born and bred, so why does Hunnam’s accent swing violently from Dublin to Sydney, only occasionally stopping on home turf? And the idea that Matt’s background in media studies puts him in mortal danger among his fellow hooligans is no less ludicrous. A disaster (of a) film.Author: DC
Time Out London Issue 1829: September 7-14 2005
User reviews of this film
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- Trent said...
- Posted on Apr 06 2009 19:01 An appalling film. Less than credible accents, and ridiculous casting aside, it steers so far from reality and stumbles over so many desperate clichés it feels like a lame cartoon.
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- Jamie said...
- Posted on Jan 26 2009 17:42 emmense, love this film and only brits will truly understand it.
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- megan o connor said...
- Posted on Jan 17 2009 21:35 i love this film and evrybody i know does to . charlie might be english but his real accent is far to posh to be the type of character he is .
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- Danielle said...
- Posted on Sep 23 2008 07:48 I love Green Street and i also love leo gregory
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- Danielle said...
- Posted on Sep 23 2008 07:48 I love Green Street and i also love leo gregory
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Cast & crew
Director: Lexi Alexander
Producer: Deborah Del Prete, Gigi Pritzker, Donald Zuckerman
Cast: Elijah Wood, Charlie Hunnam, Claire Forlani, Marc Warren full cast
Genre(s): Drama
Duration: 109 mins
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