Nick Love returns to the realms of football hooliganism with new film The Firm.
Inspired by Alan Clarke’s 1988 drama starring Gary Oldman, The Firm explores the soccer casual culture of 1980’s London, and in particular the experiences of one disillusioned teenager, Dom (Calum McNab) and his seduction into the world of hooliganism after befriending the hard-talking leader of the Inter City Firm, Bex (Paul Anderson). Infatuated by Bex’s leadership and willingness to let the youngster tag along with his crew, Dom is lured deeper and deeper into a violent life as the ICF go head to head with a rival firm headed by Bex’s arch enemy, Yeti (Daniel Mays).
Does the World Really Need Another Hooligan Film from Nick Love ?
The thought of another football violence-based film, marketed at a generation of armchair hooligans who probably have little or no recollection of the days when a fight was part and parcel of an away day doesn’t particularly fill the heart with excitement. The endless stream of unrealistic banter between characters becomes a barrage of ready-made street slang for any adolescent - equipped with a mockney accent - to amuse their mates with in the pub.
Alan Clarke’s original version of The Firm was very much of its time, when football violence was still at large on a Saturday afternoon. Nick Love’s adaptation, although retaining the 80’s setting, seems only mildly applicable to today’s over-priced, overly-commercial and increasingly less working-class football brand.
People who vehemently disagree may point the finger toward the troubles between West Ham and Millwall in a recent Carling Cup game and argue that the themes of football violence are still very much applicable to today’s match-going environment, and they may have a point. But do the caricature ‘hoolies’ of Nick Love’s films exist, or have they ever really existed? Did cockney’s really ever call each other ‘Melts’, ‘Dry lunches’, ‘Ice creams’ or ‘Didikoys’? Are Nick Love’s films an accurate portrayal of hooliganism of any era, not just the 80’s?
Despite a Good Plot Expansion The Firm Doesn’t Match up to the Original
However, there are positive notes to be taken from The Firm, and although it is more inspired by the original than a direct remake, there are significant nods to Alan Clarke’s original. Bex’s rather ironic vocation as an estate agent when he’s not threatening to ‘cut people up’ is lifted directly from the former, as well as Dom’s ‘blooding’ initiation into the Firm and the central battle between Yeti and Bex’s crews.
What Nick Love cleverly adds to Clarke’s (rather short) 70 minute version is a strong family story surrounding new recruit Dom. What this gives to the film is a strong emotional narrative drive, in comparison to Clarke’s film that felt like more of an observation on hooligan life with few, if any, likeable characters.
Dom, who’s a good kid at heart, is at odds with his father and best friend Jay, who don’t approve of his involvement with Bex. But before Dom can do anything about it, he begins to realise he’s in far too deep for his own comfort.
Paul Anderson (as Bex) manages to follow a tough act by re-creating the same unhinged menace that Gary Oldman portrayed so brilliantly in the original. The relationship between the image-obsessed casual and his new, impressionable young friend is a real highlight amid some less than convincing supporting roles.
Summary of The Firm’s Main Talking Points
Sadly, The Firm’s clichés by far overshadow any positive elements. Despite being a considerably better film than most of the celluloid bile that Nick Love has coughed up in recent years, it takes away as much quality from Alan Clarke’s movie as it adds with the extended storyline.
Why Love feels the need to persistently thrust the fact that this movie is set in the 1980’s down our throats is a mystery. If the neon opening credits or the subtitle ‘London – the 80’s’ during the opening scene didn’t give the game away then the inclusion of just about every hit single from the decade, or shoehorning cultural references ranging from ‘Mad Lizzie’ to Only Fools and Horses might have forced the point home, if anyone had missed it.
Bearing in mind that the film is orientated around violence, it’s notable that the fight sequences aren’t particularly stunning either. The hand-held camera technique adopted during the street brawls is a little too handheld, to the point where it wouldn’t be too harsh to question whether the operator was heavily inebriated. It’s less ‘cinema verite’ and more ‘cinema vomite’ if truth be told.
And then there’s the product placement. The real stars of this film seem to be the Adidas trainers and Fila tracksuits that make up the ‘casual’ hooligan chic. The clobber may well have been important to the crews of the time but The Firm takes such association to another level, somewhat irksome considering Adidas have already had a finger in another movie pie this year, with Pat Holden’s Awaydays.
It appears that selling The Firm soundtrack and retro trainers to young men, as impressionable as the film’s central character, is the primary function of a movie that shrouds any interesting work done with the storyline with too much superficial nonsense.
There is one saving grace though. Nick Love’s ‘top boy’, Danny Dyer doesn’t make an appearance at any stage.
Verdict: 3/5
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