The earlier comments about this work greatly vary. You either love it or loathe it, and some of the criticisms are understandable and are probably fair. Few films qualify as being really original. Yes this one has at least one scene that shamelessly copies Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci in 'Goodfellas' but then you could say the same about 'Lockstock and Two Smoking Barrels' copying 'Casino'. I watched TFF (courtesy of Film Four) on 16.08.06. It didn't require the brains of a rocket scientist to immediately see that it was about football hooliganism. Having been given a book called 'Tottenham Massive' for my Birthday by my wife - she genuinely didn't realise it had nothing to do with the glory, glory days of my beloved Spurs, I was aiming to switch off TFF thinking it would be more of the same. Something made me continue watching and I was not disappointed. There IS a moral to this film although it is really deferred until the twist right at the end. Dyer's recurring nightmare in the face of the looming confrontation between the Chelsea and Millwall crews is a legitimate example of dramatic license, although the implication that one only becomes psychic on a cocktail of lager and cocaine could be dangerously misleading! The cocaine and alcohol abuse is suitably unglamourous. Having had a premonition that he will himself get a really serious kicking, Dyer does indeed wake up in hospital where he immediately enquires about Zeberdee's welfare. Welcoming the good news that Zeberdee came through, Dyer feels that his none too certain defiance of superstition has been vindicated and gloats in his lack of remorse and regret. Then his instincts turn out to have been right all along, and the viewer is left with a very real sense of just deserts particularly for Harper but also for Dyer who will be devastated by Zeberdee's death. We are left with a very strong sense of the whole pathetic futility of their way of life. The film also depicts in a very effective way the pecking order of bullies, and how the weak when picked on, go on to pick on others who are even weaker. We are reminded that very few bullies would never have been bullied themselves. There are some very realistic performances. The two main thugs played by Harper and Denham are frighteningly credible: the greater respect afforded to Denham because of his better sense of strategy alarming, but not bogus. The inclusion of the two elderly heroes of WWII who fought Hitler to defeat racism provides a powerful balance to the intolerable attitudes demonstrated by the main protagonists and by Jamie Foreman's cab driver. Dudley Sutton's virtuous and tactical attempts to inject a bit of moral backbone into his errant grandson also provide welcome and touching relief. Foreman's objectionable lines are just a little too like the satirical utterances of the Private Eye taxi driver to allow his character to be really believable, but he delivers them with his usual panache. The film moves at a great pace, a desirable quality that not all British film makers really appreciate as much as their American counterparts.
Reviews
2 Reviews
The Football Factory
(2004)
A lively and realistic portrayal of a continuing problem that should not be swept under the carpet
17 August 2006
Warning: Spoilers
The Miracle of Bern
(2003)
A touching, humorous film which avoids being overly sentimental.
25 September 2005
Warning: Spoilers
This is a gem of a film, in no way undermined by sub titles. It had a similar effect on me to that which Billy Elliott allegedly had on our Deputy Prime Minister, J. Prescott Esq! The plot is centred around the David and Goliath struggle between mighty Hungary and little West Germany in the World Cup final hosted by Berne in the summer of 1954. Even though this was over 50 years ago, it is still generally known that the Hungarian team spearheaded by the incomparable Puskas was invincible in those days. Shortly before I was born in April that year, my father took my mother to see them play England and they thrashed us 6 - 3! Drawn in the same group in the early stages of the competition, Hungary thrashed W. Germany 8 - 3, but both teams went on to meet in the final and W. Gernamy came from behind to win 3 - 2. However that is background only.
The film is about much more than a simple triumph in a football competition. The sense of period is superb. The attention to detail to ensure that the audience really does travel 50 years back in time is to my mind almost without parallel. Aided by computer graphics which perhaps fall a little short of the quality achieved in Titanic, the film vividly portrays the atmosphere in a depressed working class community on the West side of a divided Germany, still very much demoralised by the aftermath of the second world war. Their hero is a young man nicknamed the boss who plays football for the national team. The boss is friendly with and idolised by the real hero of the film, Matthias, a little boy of about 10 who has never known his own father, Richard, a prisoner of the Russians since 1943 and like many German POWs, not repatriated until the Soviets relax their stance only after Stalin's death 10 years later. We then get a valuable insight into the difficulty that this eminently decent, but badly desensitised man has readjusting to life with his family who have moved forward in his absence. There is a problem with each of his children, but inevitably the film focuses on his relationship with little Matthias, a football mad child of whose existence Richard was actually unaware. Helped by a strong wife, a sensible priest, but above all by the child himself, the father learns to confront his demons. It turns out to be much more than the success of the national team that enables the family to recover its mutual love and self respect. Thereafter father and son make up for lost time! The film is not short on light relief. There are brilliant performances by Katherina Wackernagel and Lucas Gregorowicz playing a young newly wed couple (husband a sports reporter) whose honeymoon plans are frustrated by the World Cup fever. Bear in mind that this is only 12 years before England's own 1966 victory remember how Sir Alf Ramsey treated the journalists and interviewers of the day? Perhaps he was taking a leaf out of the book of his 1954 German counterpart! Likewise the match commentary has gone down in German folklore. In the Marriage of Maria Braun, we heard part of the original recording while something quite unconnected with football was going on! It is powerful stuff, but in this film, the commentary is rightly played to some extent for laughs. However the strongest performances come from the family members themselves and inevitably from Peter Lohmeyer and Louis Klamroth who apparently really are father and son! If Mary Poppins and Billy Elliott raised that lump in your throat, be ready to go with the flow, but have a few Kleenex to hand!
The film is about much more than a simple triumph in a football competition. The sense of period is superb. The attention to detail to ensure that the audience really does travel 50 years back in time is to my mind almost without parallel. Aided by computer graphics which perhaps fall a little short of the quality achieved in Titanic, the film vividly portrays the atmosphere in a depressed working class community on the West side of a divided Germany, still very much demoralised by the aftermath of the second world war. Their hero is a young man nicknamed the boss who plays football for the national team. The boss is friendly with and idolised by the real hero of the film, Matthias, a little boy of about 10 who has never known his own father, Richard, a prisoner of the Russians since 1943 and like many German POWs, not repatriated until the Soviets relax their stance only after Stalin's death 10 years later. We then get a valuable insight into the difficulty that this eminently decent, but badly desensitised man has readjusting to life with his family who have moved forward in his absence. There is a problem with each of his children, but inevitably the film focuses on his relationship with little Matthias, a football mad child of whose existence Richard was actually unaware. Helped by a strong wife, a sensible priest, but above all by the child himself, the father learns to confront his demons. It turns out to be much more than the success of the national team that enables the family to recover its mutual love and self respect. Thereafter father and son make up for lost time! The film is not short on light relief. There are brilliant performances by Katherina Wackernagel and Lucas Gregorowicz playing a young newly wed couple (husband a sports reporter) whose honeymoon plans are frustrated by the World Cup fever. Bear in mind that this is only 12 years before England's own 1966 victory remember how Sir Alf Ramsey treated the journalists and interviewers of the day? Perhaps he was taking a leaf out of the book of his 1954 German counterpart! Likewise the match commentary has gone down in German folklore. In the Marriage of Maria Braun, we heard part of the original recording while something quite unconnected with football was going on! It is powerful stuff, but in this film, the commentary is rightly played to some extent for laughs. However the strongest performances come from the family members themselves and inevitably from Peter Lohmeyer and Louis Klamroth who apparently really are father and son! If Mary Poppins and Billy Elliott raised that lump in your throat, be ready to go with the flow, but have a few Kleenex to hand!
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