THE HOOLIGAN FACTORY
UK, 2014, 90 minutes, Colour.
Jason Maza, Nick Nevern, Tom Burke, Ray Fearon, Stephen O' Donnell, Leo Gregory, Craig Fairbrass, Tamer Hassan, Danny Dyer.
Directed by Nick Nevern.
The Hooligan Factory is not a film that many audience will want to watch. The word, hooligan, may well be offputting – and there is quite a lot of hooligan behaviour in the film. It follows in the path of an earlier film Green Street Hooligans which also had two sequels.
This is a very British film, a focus on football, matches, the fans, the local groups who have established quite extensive “firms� who follow the clubs but who engineer situations where they can confront members of the other firms for violent clashes. They are continually pursued by the police.
This film was written and directed by Nick Nevern who appeared in a number of British action films. He appears as Dex, previous leader of his firm but having spent time in jail and, on release, wanting to re-establish himself, gathering together the former members of his firm and targeting his chief rival.
Jason Maza appears as a young man, wanting to emulate his father who was sent to jail for forcing the judge sentencing him to eat his wing. Danny has admired his father, has not liked his school years, clashes with friends and enemies. (The opening of the film has a strange sequence of three men in a car driving to a rendezvous, masked men shooting, realising they have made a mistake, recognising Danny and letting him go – but one of the men in the car, glimpsed and killed, is played by Danny Dyer who appeared in a number of this kind of film.)
Danny ingratiate himself with Dex, with Nick Nevern doing an over the top performance.
Danny becomes inseparable from Dex, Dex being his father figure, involved in all kinds of personality clashes, rendezvous with the enemy, travelling the countryside to establish authority again, being looked down on by some, violent clashes at the time of football matches.
It can only end violently – and does.
The strange aspect of the film is that there is quite a lot of parody of the behaviour of the members of the firms, taking them seriously, but not as seriously as they take themselves.
For audiences who are interested in the phenomenon of the football firms and the hooliganism that went on in the past. Perhaps a bit much – a bit mysterious – to the popular audience, let alone the worldwide audience.
