...Sports Hooliganism. Good Grief!! After having shockingly, albeit intriguingly read the synopsis of 2009's "The Firm", but before partaking of the film itself, this clueless viewer genuinely had to look that term up...investigate the phenomenon, so to speak...and to reiterate...GOOD GRIEF!!! I mean, don't get me wrong: I haven't been totally ignorant of violence in sports, as far as spectator team support, taken to a ridiculously visceral level; why, the news media, on these domestic shores, is often replant with tasty tidbits of way-too-obsessed spectators, getting way too carried away with the 'rah, rah, rah...go git' 'em, team' reverie, that they begin to beat the crap out of any random anyone, rooting for the other guy. However, these graphic news break visuals seem to typically restrict themselves to singular incidents...one-on-one's, or in one-in-a-blue-moon times, crazed mobs, blind-rage storming the sports event field, itself. In films, it almost seems like the study of 'sports hooliganism' is a sub-genre, unto itself, with...for this viewer...unseen, though reportedly tense and unflinching dramas, typically set in Great Britain, like 2005's "Green Street Hooligans", 2008's "Cass", amongst others. And
this...this eye-opening look at rampant sports spectator violence...though, reportedly much more diluted and melodramatic than it's inspiring predecessor...the original "Firm", circa 1989...it still embraces the seemingly mindless essence of the activity...
