A Road Less Travelled

Yesterday I watched a movie called Green Street Hooligans. According to the MPAA it was rated R for “Brutal violence and pervasive language.” Now, sometimes the reasons given for the ratings make absolutely no sense, but in this case they were spot on. Brutal violence and all pervasive language. And for some reason I really liked this movie. I liked it and I couldn’t figure out why until the end of the movie.

The main character of the movie is Matt Bruckner, a Harvard student studying journalism who is expelled just weeks shy of graduating because of a drugs possession charges. The coke they found in his room was actually is roommate’s, but Matt ended up taking the fall because his roommate’s father is a powerful man with lots of connections. Matt could fight it, but he knows he’d lose. So he just packs his things and leaves.

Matt tries to contact his journalist father who is once again out of the country on assignment, but if you’d like to leave a message…. So he gets on a plane to England to go stay with his sister. She is happily married and has a baby boy. There Matt meets his brother-in-law’s brother, Pete, a loud, brash, decent hooligan. Pete is the leader of a football firm. And here is where the movie bowed to my complete and utter ignorance of all things British football.

So you have the teams and they go out on the field and play. But each team also has its own unofficial firm, a cross between a gang and a group of hardcore fans gone mad. The firm supports the team during the matches and then fights for that team’s honor after the match usually by brawling with the opposing team’s firm. It’s all about reputation and honor- your’s, your team’s and your firm’s.

Matt gets pulled into this world and finds he really likes it there. He finds a place in the Green Street Elite, a good friend in Pete and a confidence he never had. And this by itself is not a good enough reason to enjoy this movie.

I found my reason in one line. In a voice over Matt says, “You know the best part? It isn’t knowing your friend’s have your back. It’s knowing you have your friend’s.” Green Street Hooligans is about a boy stepping up into a man because some thugs teach him not to be a coward. See, Matt probably would have lost the fight back at Harvard, but that’s not why he ran. Matt is a coward. He is a coward who’s father never taught him anything about being a man. In the GSE he finds a group of men who stand their ground no matter what. Even when they’re outnumbered and out gunned they stand their ground and dare the other side to try to bring them down. They fight for honor and each other. No, it’s not right. Yes, it’s brutal and it’s bloody. The movie is very clear on the point. But it’s the closest thing to manly these group of battered guys can come up with. So they teach it to Matt and he actually comes out better at the end.

Cause see, come the end of the movie why they fight is turned on its head. Matt’s last fight has nothing to do with reputation and everything to do with fighting because your friends need you. And within that fight is an even better reason to fight to the bloody death. Matt grew up. It came late, it came from the wrong people and it came with bloody consequences, but he did grow up. By the end of the movie he’d learned how to fight, why to fight, when to fight and when to just walk away.