The Firm released on limited edition Blu-ray from Twilight Time on May 13th, 2014
I love having an experience like I just had. I’ve never heard of The Firm (2009). Not only that, but I’ve never heard of its director Nick Love. I’m not familiar with its stars Paul Anderson or Calum Macnab either. And as we humans are wont to do when there is no recognizable name to grab us, I probably would have passed on this film (or continued being unaware of its existence) had Twilight Time not released it on blu-ray. Here at Cinapse we’ve gotten a lot of access to Twilight Time’s stuff recently, and in a very short amount of time I’m coming to believe in their distribution choices as I would something that is being released by Drafthouse Films or even (dare I draw the comparison) Criterion. On occasion they are releasing some of my personal all time loves like their upcoming release of The Mechanic , or the recent release of The Driver, but more often than not they are releasing films I’d been largely unaware of or hadn’t seen before, and it is in these instances that they are earning my trust so fully.
Because now I’ve seen and loved The Firm. I’ve poked around and looked into the career of Nick Love, and his stars, and they are, newly (and firmly) on my radar. I had a blast with this impressive film and look forward to diving more fully into the other films of those involved in this project.
A remake of a 1989 film made for television on the BBC which was directed by the famous Alan Clarke and starred Gary Oldman, The Firm (2009) had an uphill battle in its native Britain due to the original being well loved. It had none of that uphill battle with me because I only know of the original after digging around and listening to the commentary on this release. Here writer and director Love has adapted the original’s screenplay and added a significant “coming of age” element to the story of the original.
Head man of (what I believe to be a nameless, but with the thick accents and slang, I can’t be entirely sure) soccer hooligan firm Bex is played by newcomer to film work Paul Anderson to wonderful effect. And young, angsty Dom (Calum MacNab) sees his shot at escaping the drudgery of his teen existence of smoking weed, break dancing, and occasionally working for his blue collar father through the complex and intoxicating bully Bex. My understanding is that Clarke’s film focused entirely on Bex’s complicated life; the tale of a man with a successful job as a realtor, husband, and father, who spends more time with his “mates” picking the times and places for riot-like confrontations with other firms and picking just the right track suit and trainer combo to look the sharpest of them all. Of course a man like Bex is attractive to the teenage Dom, who sees the coolest man in the city.
What is harder to swallow is why we in the audience fall a little under Bex’s spell as well. There is an innate shallowness to the firm’s fixations on fashion, their school-girl-ish fights over nothing but posturing (literally nothing… as the film intentionally never even establishes what “football” teams these firms are even fans of, and certainly never shows a professional match being played), and the overall school yard bully nature of the firm. It serves as a highly effective attraction/repulsion dynamic as the 1980s music and fashion does make me fall in love with the world Love is creating here, but also, frankly, makes you fall a little bit in love with The Firm. I felt happy for Dom to find a grand new family to be a part of, something he was longing for so badly.
Of course, the problem there is that Dom’s motivations are shown to be just as teen-like as the adult Bex’s. Love’s screenplay sets up Dom with an absolutely lovely and authentic feeling home life, complete with loving parents who have an endearing relationship with their prickly teen son, and a best friend who feels spurned by Dom’s dalliances with the firm. Again, an intentional dynamic has been set up where we totally understand Dom’s fixation on Bex, but we also see his teen angst as being as misplaced as many of ours was. Somehow working a construction job with his father and breakdancing with his mates seems like “not enough” for Dom, but things will get pretty real with the firm pretty quickly as Bex plans to unite (and lead) several British firms before they go down to Germany for some kind of giant match (maybe the World Cup?) and the heads of those other firms don’t take kindly to Bex’s suggestion that he head up their coalition.
Besides an emotionally resonant recreation of the 1980s and wonderfully acted, strongly written characters, The Firm also offers up a key element to secure its status as an excellent film: an authentic exploration of soccer hooliganism. There are roughly four giant street battles between firms over the course of the film, serving different dramatic purposes each time, and they are excellently captured. Love involved a man named Lee Jackson (credited as “technical consultant”) in the project who was a part of hooliganism in the ’80s in his youth, and who was deeply involved in the execution of the film in order to draw out as much authenticity as possible. Jackson is prominent in the film’s bonus features.
These “battle” sequences are successful on multiple fronts. From a filmmaking perspective they are captured with steadicam rigs, often right in the middle of the melee, to disorienting and energetic results. Love eschews close ups and quick cuts in favor of letting their steadicam catch wide shots of insanity and snippets of confusion and flashes of real violence. And in this world of modern CGI, sometimes you forget what it looks like to see real armies of human beings. But here Love manages to get large enough crowds involved in these battles to really impress a sense of scope on the viewer. These are not choreographed fights like we’d see in an action film. These are a bunch of realtors and bankers, frustrated middle aged men trying to direct their rage at something tangible… a man’s face who loves a different football team than they do. So from a sociological standpoint these melees are also quite successful. In one bonus feature Love is insisting to the actors involved that roughly 100 of them want to be out on the street, yelling, screaming, participating, watching, feeling like a “part of something”, and only maybe a dozen or so men actually want to come to blows. So again, a story is being told through each of these hooligan confrontations through the style of filmmaking and with visual storytelling as well.
The Firm was my first Nick Love film, and I’m hoping it won’t be my last. (I’m going to add his follow up, The Sweeney, to my Netflix queue ASAP). The film flirted with my own need to direct my societal frustrations somewhere, tried to make me fall in love with Bex the same way that Dom does; and then flipped those misguided frustrations on their head, and reminded me that my family and friends just might be enough for my ultimate contentment. Sure, the movie ends up a little tidily, and a savvy viewer might know exactly what dark turns The Firm is going to introduce. But I’m pre-disposed to fascination with both soccer hooliganism, and growing up in the 1980s, so I found so much to love in The Firm that I got swept right up in the joy of cinematic discovery. I recommend checking it out to see if it works the same magic on you.
The Package
I’ve already mentioned that the film is gorgeous. DP Matt Gray not only captures the battle sequences with a confident, handheld approach, but also presents a magical, colorful Great Britain of the 1980s that translates beautifully to blu-ray. So the film itself looks marvelous, and although the bonus features seem to be entirely in standard definition and likely ported over from a previous DVD release, perhaps in its native England, this is still a treat of a package for an obscure title waiting to be discovered. (Not to mention that the grainy, SD look of the bonus features only highlights how excellent the final film really does look).
Isolated Score Track: A Twilight Time staple. I haven’t taken advantage of this, but the soundtrack of the film is excellent, featuring “Tainted Love” quite prominently among other great ’80s tracks.
Audio Commentary with Director Nick Love, star Paul Anderson, and technical consultant Lee Jackson: I listened to roughly 30 minutes of this before I had to turn it off. While the guys seemed to be having a great time, and even occasionally offered some cool insights, their familiarity with one another had them talking over each other in thick accents and my stress levels were shooting through the roof trying to understand them and keep it all straight.
The Making Of The Firm, Deleted and Alternate Scenes, Anatomy Of The Fights, Original Theatrical Trailer
Liner Notes from Julie Kirgo: An excellent read. I always appreciate a great, brief essay and feel that touches like these are what really set Twilight Time apart.
This release was a delight. There is something about stumbling across an underseen gem, having your hand held by a guide like Twilight Time, that really brings out the joy in being a cinephile. The Firm isn’t the greatest film ever made, or the best recreation of the ’80s. It didn’t pull at my heartstrings as deeply as some other coming of age tales do. But there is no doubt that this is my favorite soccer hooligan movie to date, and that this package is an excellent one.
And I’m Out.