This was regarded at one point as being the greatest ever film to feature football hooliganism so much so that when Nick Love remade it in 2009 you'd think he'd committed the worst cultural taboo imaginable judging by some reactions . To be fair to Love his remake wasn't so much a remake but more of a reworking of the original story where a peripheral character became the story's focus and where character dynamics were completely different . Even so the original version of THE FIRM has gained such a reputation over the years it's almost like the holy grail of hooligan films . After seeing it again I have to question why this is ?
Certainly it's a very entertaining film but not necessarily for the right reasons . The story centres around which football firm will be leading the charge of English football violence at the 1988 Euro Championship in West Germany . It's dog eat dog , survival of the fittest as a group of well known British actors from EASTENDERS , ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES and CORONATION ST try and mince one another to death . It's WWF meets Derek Jarman as they try and come up with the meanest put down while trying to act all tough and macho . I'll give the cast some credit and say they must have put a lot of rehearsal in to this because the lines are genuinely funny even though one suspects they weren't supposed to be
Alan Clarke seems a strange choice as director . Regarded as one of the greats of British realist cinema and whose inspiration is still felt today he can't really make the characters or situations any more realistic than the cartoonish characters appear to be on the written page . Worse than that his realist style seems to jar with the genuinely cartoonish witty one liners that contradicts the feeling this might in anyway be a realist film . His use of steadicam used so effectively in SCUM is slightly distracting
THE FIRM also suffers from a very dated feel . The thugs seen here are relatively old and affluent and you can see there's a slight social commentary equating soccer violence with Thatcherism and social mobility . But at the end of the day everything about it has a camp feel and one wonders if the demise of the football hooligan had a lot to do with them being portrayed as latent homosexuals which is definitely a feeling you get with this film
Certainly it's a very entertaining film but not necessarily for the right reasons . The story centres around which football firm will be leading the charge of English football violence at the 1988 Euro Championship in West Germany . It's dog eat dog , survival of the fittest as a group of well known British actors from EASTENDERS , ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES and CORONATION ST try and mince one another to death . It's WWF meets Derek Jarman as they try and come up with the meanest put down while trying to act all tough and macho . I'll give the cast some credit and say they must have put a lot of rehearsal in to this because the lines are genuinely funny even though one suspects they weren't supposed to be
Alan Clarke seems a strange choice as director . Regarded as one of the greats of British realist cinema and whose inspiration is still felt today he can't really make the characters or situations any more realistic than the cartoonish characters appear to be on the written page . Worse than that his realist style seems to jar with the genuinely cartoonish witty one liners that contradicts the feeling this might in anyway be a realist film . His use of steadicam used so effectively in SCUM is slightly distracting
THE FIRM also suffers from a very dated feel . The thugs seen here are relatively old and affluent and you can see there's a slight social commentary equating soccer violence with Thatcherism and social mobility . But at the end of the day everything about it has a camp feel and one wonders if the demise of the football hooligan had a lot to do with them being portrayed as latent homosexuals which is definitely a feeling you get with this film