Watch The Football Factory For Free
The Football Factory
The Football Factory is more than just a study of the English obsession with football violence, it's about men looking for armies to join, wars to fight and places to belong. A forgotten culture of Anglo Saxon males fed up with being told they're not good enough and using their fists as a drug they describe as being more potent than sex and drugs put together.
Release : | 2004 |
Rating : | 6.7 |
Studio : | Vertigo Films, Rockstar Games, |
Crew : | Art Department Assistant, Construction Manager, |
Cast : | Danny Dyer Neil Maskell Frank Harper Tamer Hassan Roland Manookian |
Genre : | Drama |
Watch Trailer
Cast List
Related Movies
Reviews
Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.
An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
Before he joined EastEnders, I knew the sweary cockney actor for films like Human Traffic and Severance, and of course his many straight-to-DVD releases, EastEnders has given him the opportunity to get away from his usual hard man character, when it comes to his film career, this is the film most people know him for, directed by Nick Lowe (The Business, The Sweeney). Basically Tommy Johnson (Danny Dyer) is a member of a Chelsea hooligan firm, his friends and fellow hooligans are his best friend Rod King (Neil Maskell), hot- tempered Billy Bright (Frank Harper), and young and impulsive members Zeberdee (Roland Manookian) and Raf (Calum MacNab). Tommy's pensioner and veteran grandfather Bill Farrell (EastEnders' Dudley Sutton) is disappointed as Tommy spends his days drinking, using drugs, womanising and fighting, Bill plans to move to Australia with his best friend Albert (John Junkin). Tommy has an epiphany about his lifestyle during a fight with the Tottenham hooligan firm, Tommy, Billy and Rod are arrested for assaulting two Stoke City fans, Chelsea firm leader Harris (Tony Denham) is furious by these actions, especially by Billy's aggressive outbursts. Other things going on include Rod beginning a relationship with court clerk Tamara (Sophie Linfield), she pressures him to skip his weekend meets, and Billy's house being accidentally robbed by Zeberdee and his friend Raff, Billy himself deals with increased loneliness overhearing his irrelevance to Harris, and Bill's friend Albert dies the night before they are due to leave for Australia. Tommy is caught and held hostage by the brother of a girl he picked up at a club, Shian (Michele Hallak), Rod saves him, hitting the man on the head with a cricket bat, the brother turns out also be the brother of the rival Millwall firm's leader, Fred (Tamer Hassan), who is hunting Tommy down. Throughout the various characters encounter a racist taxi driver (EastEnders' Jamie Foreman), this is a subplot recurring. All the fighting culminates in a battle between the Chelsea and Millwall firms, with Tommy severely beaten up, ending up in hospital with Bill who has suffered a heart attack. In the end Tommy remains with the firm, Bill moves to Australia, Billy Bright is imprisoned for seven years, Zeberdee is killed by a drug dealer, this was a dream that Tommy kept being tormented by. Also starring EastEnders' Kara Tointon as Tameka. Dyer as the leading star and narrator certainly serves his purpose as a low-life football hooligan, the other actors do their parts fine as well, there is no real storyline as such, it is really a view into the life of a thug who like to beat people up and loves football, it does not hold back with the violence, so it neither condoning or condemning it, I could not follow everything going on, but overall I found it an average British sports crime drama. Worth watching!
Nick Love has to be one of the shoddiest directors working in Britain today. All of his films have a depressing, fatalistic air to them, lacking in decent characters and character intrigue. All of them feel slightly false, in that there's something hollow about them. When you see somebody acting in a Nick Love film, you always feel that they're acting rather than believing in the character.This is my fourth Love film, following on from THE BUSINESS (poor), OUTLAW (hugely disappointing) and THE SWEENEY (acceptable at best). It's the simplistic story of a football hooligan and the friends and rivals in his life. The film boasts an early, career-making turn from Cockney geezer Danny Dyer, who's frankly annoying in this one, playing alongside the likes of Dudley Sutton and Tamer Hassan.Love's own script is the worst thing about this. Unsurprisingly he has an air for thuggish-sounding dialogue but the dialogue is just random expletive-filled insults throughout. It's hardly Tarantino, more like a load of juvenile nonsense from somebody with a clear lack of talent. THE FOOTBALL FACTORY is the kind of film that makes you despair for state of the British film industry.
For me , Love's emergence as an auteur represents a watershed moment for early twenty-first century British cinema. After the storms of Leigh and Loach have mellowed in recent years, the public awaited , day by day, hour by hour, anxious for a new cinematic messiah to ease their collective cultural consciousness, and to provide adequate imagery for the post thatcher years. I believe the dyer/love collaboration will eventually bear fruit similar to the cross continental greatness of de niro and scorsese, and this visceral, intellectually and emotionally engaging picture will convince others of the revolution of minds love is clearly pursuing.
this is yet another example of why the films made in the UK SUCK a typical British film, full of scum bags, swearing, drugs, violence, football.. it seems this is the only thing British film makers seem to understand and it makes me sick.all characters look the same, sound the same, and swear in almost every sentence... was this written by some scum bag baghead on the dole? seems like it.the sad thing is, this does reflect what people are like in england. But i'll stick to watching American films, a country that actually understands how to make a film.