Hooligans at War : North vs. South
At first glance, I had kind of thought Hooligans at War would be an actual wartime film. You know, soccer thugs getting drafted and having to go after Vietnam or something. But no, this is really just a good old fashion gangster story with some military bits thrown in. It’s not my feel like the whole mafia thing we are used to in America, but these are still small time gangsters creating their own empires in the south and north of London.It starts off with a brawl before flashing back to those days in the service, guns in the field and shenanigans in the mess. It’s while they are there that they realize they could come back and run the town, one in the north and won the boss of the South. We actually get an interesting introduction to everybody, mostly in the pub (Though it keeps popping up throughout the entire movie)… In a way that’s 
reminiscent of Goodfellas.
reminiscent of Goodfellas.The film flashes back-and-forth between the Bosnia scenes and the London scenes. Well I imagine it’s meant to give a lot more depth and characterization, I really only comes off as confusing… Choppy There’s not enough paralles to whats going on in the past vs the present (which would have made for a more interesting narrative) and quite frankly, I never feel convinced this is actually Bosnia and not just the English countryside. I’m far more invested in the main narrative about the gangs, particularly as we hit the 30 minute point and get back to that brawl that we saw getting started at 
the beginning of the film.
Throughout the film, it’s basically British thug life at its best. We drift from encounter to encounter, nothing particularly flashy or too complicated. It almost feels like a documentary. Like one of those re-creation bits that we get in the middle of crime doc television like America’s Most Wanted or Unsolved Mysteries. That’s really where I think this movie finds its best destiny. As a “day-in-the-life” sort of film, an opportunity to step into the shoes of a London gangster for a bit, complete with the deals, jobs, and fights that go along with it all.
the beginning of the film. Throughout the film, it’s basically British thug life at its best. We drift from encounter to encounter, nothing particularly flashy or too complicated. It almost feels like a documentary. Like one of those re-creation bits that we get in the middle of crime doc television like America’s Most Wanted or Unsolved Mysteries. That’s really where I think this movie finds its best destiny. As a “day-in-the-life” sort of film, an opportunity to step into the shoes of a London gangster for a bit, complete with the deals, jobs, and fights that go along with it all.
It’s not a bad film, especially since I enjoy the genre, but I could do with a solid narrative… A well defined journey from point a to point B. The plot we get here is weak at best. Tense towards the end, but meandering through the rest. of. It’s a good curiosity to toss into the middle of Smith‘s crime films if you’re doing a marathon, otherwise you can safely give this one a pass.
Argo City Comics 