The Football Factory (film)

Last updated

The Football Factory
The Football Factory poster.JPG
Promotional poster
Directed by Nick Love
Written byAJ Lovell
Based on The Football Factory
by John King
Produced by Allan Niblo
James Richardson
Starring Danny Dyer
Frank Harper
Tamer Hassan
Roland Manookian
Neil Maskell
Dudley Sutton
Narrated byJonathan Heywood
CinematographyDamian Bromley
Edited byStuart Gazzard
Music by Ivor Guest
Production
companies
Distributed by Momentum Pictures
Release date
  • 14 May 2004 (2004-05-14)
Running time
91 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Box office £623,138

The Football Factory is a 2004 British sports drama film written by AJ Lovell and directed by Nick Love and starring Danny Dyer, Tamer Hassan, Frank Harper, Roland Manookian, Neil Maskell and Dudley Sutton. The film is loosely based on the novel of the same name by John King [1] and the first foray into filmmaking by video game producers Rockstar Games (publishers of games such as the Grand Theft Auto series, among others), credited as executive producers. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 14 May 2004. [2]

Contents

Plot

Tommy Johnson (Danny Dyer) is a member of a violent Chelsea hooligan firm. His friends and fellow hooligans include Tommy's best friend Rod King (Neil Maskell), the hot-tempered Billy Bright (Frank Harper), and impulsive younger members Zeberdee (Roland Manookian) and Raf (Calum MacNab). Tommy spends his days drinking, using drugs, womanising and fighting, much to the disappointment of his grandfather Bill Farrell (Dudley Sutton), a pensioner and veteran who plans to move to Australia with his best friend Albert (John Junkin).

Tommy has an epiphany about his lifestyle during a fight with the Tottenham hooligan firm. Tommy, Billy and Rod are arrested for assaulting two Stoke City fans whilst travelling to an away match. These actions draw the fury of Harris (Tony Denham), the leader of the Chelsea firm, whose attempts to keep order are thwarted by Billy's aggressive outbursts.

Rod begins a relationship with Tamara (Sophie Linfield), the court clerk at their arraignment, and she pressures him to skip his weekend meets. Zeberdee and his friend Raff accidentally burgle Billy's house and are forced to stand in his living room, whilst Billy's children throw darts at them. Billy deals with his increasing loneliness after he overhears Harris discussing his irrelevance. Bill's plan to retire to Australia are postponed, when Albert dies the night before they are to leave.

Early in the film, Tommy is caught and held hostage by the brother of Sian (Michele Hallak), a girl he picked up at a club. He is saved when Rod hits the man on the head with a cricket bat. Sian's brother turns out to also be the brother of the rival Millwall firm's leader, Fred (Tamer Hassan), who then hunts Tommy down throughout the entire film. The film culminates in a pitched battle between the Chelsea and Millwall firms. Rod (after a few espressos and a line of cocaine), leaves a dinner with Tamara's parents after offending them, and attends the "meet". Tommy is severely beaten by Fred and a group of Millwall hooligans, and ends up in the hospital with Bill, who, in the meantime, has suffered a heart attack.

At the end of the film, a crippled Tommy decides that his place is at the firm with his friends, Bill gets cured and moves to Australia and Billy Bright is incarcerated for seven years after being arrested at the Millwall meet (whilst saving Harris from being arrested). Zeberdee is killed by a drug dealer, whom he had previously mugged, fulfilling a recurring nightmare that tormented Tommy throughout the film. In a pre-credits slideshow, Tommy is shown to have since moved on to watching Rugby. However, this is only a joke and he has not actually started to watch rugby.

Cast

Reception

Critical response

The Football Factory received negative reviews. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 38% of 8 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.70/10. [3]

Box office

The Football Factory grossed a total of £623,138 in the United Kingdom.

Cultural influence

In 2004, Chelsea F.C. football supporters' fanzine cfcuk produced a special edition to coincide with the release of the film.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Millwall F.C.</span> Association football club in London, England

Millwall Football Club is a professional football club in Bermondsey, South East London, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second level of English football. Founded as Millwall Rovers in 1885, the club has retained its name despite having last played in the Millwall area of the Isle of Dogs in 1910. From then until 1993, the club played at what is now called The Old Den in New Cross, before moving to its current home stadium nearby, called The Den. The traditional club crest is a rampant lion, referred to in the team's nickname The Lions. Millwall's traditional kit consists of dark blue shirts, white shorts, and blue socks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chelsea Headhunters</span> Football firm linked with Chelsea F.C.

The Chelsea Headhunters are a notorious English football hooligan firm linked to the London football club Chelsea.

<i>Green Street</i> (film) 2005 British-American crime drama film

Green Street is a 2005 crime drama film about football hooliganism in the United Kingdom. The film was directed by Lexi Alexander and stars Elijah Wood and Charlie Hunnam.

<i>The Business</i> (film) 2005 British film

The Business is a 2005 crime film written and directed by Nick Love. The film stars Danny Dyer, Tamer Hassan and Roland Manookian, all of whom were in Love's previous film The Football Factory. Geoff Bell and Georgina Chapman also appear. The plot of The Business follows the Greek tragedy-like rise and fall of a young cockney's career within a drug importing business run by a group of British expatriate fugitive criminals living on the Costa del Sol in Spain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tamer Hassan</span> British actor

Tamer Hassan is a British actor. He is best known for his role as the leader of the Millwall firm, opposite Danny Dyer, in The Football Factory (2004), Layer Cake (2004), Batman Begins (2005), The Business (2005), The Ferryman (2007), Sucker Punch (2008), Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead (2009), Kick-Ass (2010), The Double (2011), The Hooligan Factory (2014), Game of Thrones (2016), and Snatch (2017–2018).

Nick Love is an English film director and writer. His credits include the films The Football Factory, The Business, Goodbye Charlie Bright, Outlaw, The Sweeney, and a 2009 remake of football hooliganism drama The Firm.

Geoff Bell is an English actor. He has appeared in Mike Bassett: England Manager (2001), Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003), The Long Firm (2004), Making Waves (2004), King Arthur (2004), The Business (2005), Green Street (2005), Stardust (2007), Freebird (2008), RocknRolla (2008), Brighton Rock (2010), War Horse (2011), Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014), North v South (2015), Suffragette (2015), Rogue One (2016), The Man with the Iron Heart (2017), King Arthur (2017), The End of the F***ing World (2017), Tin Star (2017), Once Upon a Time in London (2018), and His Dark Materials (2019).

The Real Football Factories is a documentary series shown on the Bravo television channel in the United Kingdom and created by Zig Zag Productions. The show looks at the in-depth life of football hooligans and hooligan firms. Interviews are conducted with past and present hooligans.

<i>The Football Factory</i> (novel) 1997 novel by John King

The Football Factory is the controversial debut novel by English author John King, and is based around the adventures of a group of working-class Londoners who follow Chelsea home and away, fighting their rivals on the streets of England's cities.

"No one likes us, we don't care" is a sports chant that originated as a football chant sung by supporters of the English football club Millwall in the late 1970s. It is sung to the tune of "(We Are) Sailing" by Rod Stewart.

<i>Rise of the Footsoldier</i> British gangster film series

Rise of the Footsoldier is a British gangster film franchise written and directed by Julian Gilbey, Will Gilbey, Ricci Harnett, Zackary Adler, Andrew Loveday and Nick Nevern, distributed by Optimum Releasing. The franchise and its first two films are based on true events featured in the autobiography of Inter City Firm hooligan turned gangster Carlton Leach before later films focus on the lives of drug dealers Pat Tate and Tony Tucker who were gunned down in the Rettendon murders in 1995.

<i>Goodbye Charlie Bright</i> 2001 film by Nick Love

Goodbye Charlie Bright is a 2001 comedy-drama film directed by Nick Love and starring Paul Nicholls, Roland Manookian and Danny Dyer. The film is also known by the U.S. title Strong Boys.

Roland Manookian is an English actor. He is known for his roles in the films The Football Factory (2004) and Rise of the Footsoldier (2007). On television, he appeared in The Bill (1999), The Vice (2000), and Dunkirk (2004). His other films include The Business (2005), Rocknrolla (2007), Dead Cert (2010), Piggy (2012), and Once Upon a Time in London (2018).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Millwall F.C.–West Ham United F.C. rivalry</span> Rivalry between two London football teams

The rivalry between Millwall and West Ham United is one of the longest-standing and most bitter in English football. The two teams, then known as Millwall Athletic and Thames Ironworks, both originated in the East End of London, and were located less than three miles apart. They first played each other in the 1899–1900 FA Cup. The match was historically known as the Dockers derby, as both sets of supporters were predominantly dockers at shipyards on the River Thames. Consequently, each set of fans worked for rival firms who were competing for the same business; this intensified the tension between the teams. In 1904, West Ham moved to the Boleyn Ground which was then part of Essex until a London boundary change in 1965. In 1910, Millwall moved across the River Thames to New Cross in South East London and the teams were no longer East London neighbours. Both sides have relocated since, but remain just under four miles apart. Millwall moved to The Den in Bermondsey in 1993 and West Ham to the London Stadium in Stratford in 2016.

<i>The Firm</i> (2009 film) 2009 British film

The Firm is a 2009 British drama film based around football hooliganism written and directed by Nick Love. It is a remake of the original 1989 version.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neil Maskell</span> English actor, writer and director

Neil Maskell is an English actor, writer and director who is known for his appearances in British crime and horror films. His credits include Nil by Mouth (1997), The Football Factory (2004), Rise of the Footsoldier (2007), Doghouse (2009), Bonded by Blood (2010), Kill List (2011), Wild Bill (2011), St George's Day and Piggy, The Great Train Robbery (2013), Raised by Wolves (2015), The Mummy (2017), King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017), Peaky Blinders (2019), Bull (2021), Litvinenko (2022), and Hijack (2023).

<i>England Away</i> 1998 novel by John King

England Away is the third novel by John King, first published by Jonathan Cape in 1998 and subsequently by Vintage. The final part of The Football Factory Trilogy, it follows characters from The Football Factory and Headhunters as they come together and head into Europe for an England football match against Germany in Berlin.

<i>The Rise and Fall of a White Collar Hooligan</i> 2012 British film

The Rise and Fall of a White Collar Hooligan is a 2012 British crime film directed by Paul Tanter and starring Nick Nevern, Simon Phillips, Rita Ramnani, and Billy Murray.

<i>The Hooligan Factory</i> 2014 British film

The Hooligan Factory is a 2014 football hooliganism spoof film directed, co-written and starring Nick Nevern. The film heavily parodies titles from the British hooligan genre films and focuses mainly on The Firm, along with The Football Factory, Rise of the Footsoldier, I.D., Green Street and Cass.

<i>Green Street 3: Never Back Down</i> 2013 British film

Green Street 3: Never Back Down is a 2013 British crime film directed by James Nunn and a sequel to the 2009 film Green Street 2: Stand Your Ground directed by Jesse V. Johnson.

References

  1. Hall, Sandra (14 October 2004). "The Football Factory". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 14 July 2012.
  2. "The Football Factory". BBC News. Retrieved 18 June 2016.
  3. "The Football Factory". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved 16 November 2022.