Green Street Hooligans: Underground hits DVD on 2/24 from Lionsgate
There’s only so many topics a soccer hooligan movie can cover. It isn’t the broadest of sub-genres, although I do count myself a fan of the handful that I’ve seen. There has to be a brawl between rival firms, obviously. There has to be a modicum of actual soccer, and most definitely a few pubs that represent various firms’ home base. That sets up your basic parameters. In order to insert a story in there, you tend to either have a young, upstart firm leader trying to make a name for himself, or an older hooligan trying to get out and form a more productive life for himself. There tend to be characters who are highly successful in the real world and who live a double life in a soccer firm, cheering on their team and pounding their rival firms’ faces in on the weekends and contributing to society during the week. And someone almost always gets irreparably hurt or sometimes even killed. I don’t know a single thing about real life hooliganism, but these are the rules by which soccer hooligan cinema seem to hew closely. As I mentioned, I’m a fan.
So to add Scott Adkins (perhaps my favorite action movie leading man working today) into the mix with the third Green Street Hooligans film made this a much watch for me. Himself a British man, although he’s often forced to put on an American accent, Adkins seems a perfect fit for a soccer hooligan movie on many levels, but there was one thing I was fairly nervous about. Known for his spectacular martial arts abilities, how would filmmaker James Nunn (Tower Block) be able to showcase Adkins’ talents amidst chaotic street brawls fought by drunken pub dwellers, wherein a perfectly delivered spin kick would look more than a little out of place?
That’s where the titular “underground” part comes in with a convenient workaround that kind of saves the day as far as entertainment value goes.
You see, Green Street Underground conforms very comfortably to the established formula I laid out earlier. Here, Adkins plays Danny, a former Green Street Elite leader with a legendary reputation, who “got out” and started his own gym, turning his back on his former life. Unfortunately his younger brother, attempting to fill Danny’s shoes, manages to get in over his head. Danny is forced to return to get to the bottom of his brothers’ death, and he’ll work all the angles to get his revenge. Just about every standby convention can be checked off the list here in writer Ronnie Thompson’s screenplay. The drama offers almost no surprises whatsoever. Adkins will get the only girl in the entire movie. He’ll solve his brother’s murder and kick all the ass in the process. He’ll even re-establish the legendary status of the Green Street Elite firm even though he’s theoretically moved on from hooliganism. You won’t for a moment question Danny’s ascendency. So no, your life won’t be changed by the storyline.
But you will probably have a lot of fun during the brawls and fight sequences. Cleverly, this film presents a system of firm combat that has gone, you guessed it, “underground”. In an effort to keep the police off their backs and create a more wholesome public image, the soccer firms of London have created an organized underground fighting ring. In battles of 5 on 5, firms battle for the top spot, and the combat can be brutal. Even from simply reading this review you’ve probably already sorted out that Danny’s younger brother fell victim to an underground brawl gone wrong, but you best believe that Adkins will whip his GSE crew into shape in order for them to fight their way to superiority and simultaneously get the facts about what happened to his brother.
It isn’t rocket science, but by adding in the element of underground 5 on 5 fights, you get to see what you pay to see Scott Adkins do. And you even get some training montages thrown in for extra measure.
This won’t go down as my favorite Scott Adkins film of all time, but it certainly created plenty of entertainment value for my action addict sensibilities, with action choreographer Joey Ansah (who also acts in the film) doing a solid job of giving Adkins some moments of flare mixed in with the more street brawler style necessitated by soccer firm fights.
I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the soundtrack, a gloriously on the nose 80s synth barrage which, while potentially feeling slightly out of place, was nonetheless wholly welcome as another element which deviated from the norm and helped this film to stand out and feel a little fresh. Composed by the duo known as “Bob and Barn”, Andrew Barnabas and Paul Arnold have a history of video game score composition and here appear to be making their feature film debut. The effect is gloriously blatant, and I wouldn’t change it for anything.
Green Street Hooligans: Underground will likely be received as a solid piece of entertainment for Scott Adkins fans, and I imagine an exciting entry for fans of the surprise Green Street Hooligans franchise. I haven’t seen the second film and can only imagine it covers some of the same territory I’ve laid out here, but the first film was my cinematic introduction to this whole world of hooliganism and comes from director Lexi Alexander (Punisher: War Zone). There you’ll find more heightened drama and weight, and I recommend checking out the original if you have even a passing interest in this one.
The Package
Lionsgate chose to limit this release to DVD and the lack of high definition is unfortunately readily apparent. One can imagine there being a fair amount of dark sequences in a movie with the surname “Underground”, and the blacks on this transfer are actually dismal. Grey-ish pixelization and clouding appear in the really dark shots to a distracting degree. And the transfer appeared to have a few moments of slow down and speed up, almost like you were watching a buffering video on the internet at times. It is unfortunate that a more professional and high definition transfer couldn’t have been made for a movie that obviously has a built in fanbase of Scott Adkins fans and Green Street fans. I’m sure the profit margins on these kinds of releases are tricky, but even a bare bones Blu-ray would’ve meant a lot to me and I felt its loss.
There’s only one behind the scenes featurette on the disc but it is noteworthy to hear that Adkins and director James Nunn made the agreement to work together over a few beers at Austin’s own Fantastic Fest, where they met as they attended the fest to show us their kick ass films Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning, and Tower Block.
There’s not much to this release, and the transfer doesn’t do the film any favors. But US fans who’ve been clamoring to see this film ever since its European release some 2 years ago now have a chance to check it out for themselves and I know I’m happy to have enjoyed one more Scott Adkins joint.
And I’m Out.