The Football Factory is movie about football (soccer) fans. Since they seem to be more interested in fighting than in actually watching the games this is certainly no sports film so don't let the title fool you. It's also based upon a novel that I haven't even heard of, but that could perhaps be because I'm in Sweden.

The Football Factory is a very episodic movie. Mostly it works, but sometimes I felt like I wanted to spend more time with main character Tommy Johnson or that they should at least had focused on fewer characters. Sometimes I felt that a scene was working really well, but the story quickly focused on other things. As I said, more often than not the episodic feel works fine, but not all the time.

As in almost all English movies the acting's great. From minor characters to main characters... they feel real. I especially think the voice over sounds very authentic: it's Tommy speaking, not actor Danny Dryer reading.

I think this is a good movie, it's rather violent and upsetting at times, but also funny and entertaining.

An auteur is regarded as a director who has a running theme throughout their resume . For example Robert Aldrich is considered a " sadistic " director and whileis films may be tame compared to the video nasty era the likes of TOO LATE THE HERO and ULZANA'S RAID do still come across as compellingly blood thirsty and violent . The films of Martin Scorsese usually involve protagonists being caught in an existentialist quicksand where the more they try and find their goal in life the more they sink into a problem of their own making . Let's not get too caught up in the auteur theory however because much of it is simply down to movie studios assigning scripts to well suited directors " Hey Marty , we've got a script here featuring a deranged loner wanting to join the mob . Bob and Leonardo have already signed on the dotted line . You interested ? " . Nevertheless it's obvious that Nick Love in the years ahead will be honoured in this fashion if only because his films feature blackly comical stories of working class British males fed up with the state of the nation

In terms of style and execution THE FOOTBALL FACTORY isn't a million miles away from the likes of TRAINSPOTTING and TWO SMOKING BARALLS . It's very quirky , rather episodic , fairly violent and oh so bloody entertaining . You could say it contains all the flaws of recent British movies like an overuse of the words " FAHKIN' " and " KANT " but we are talking about the notorious Chelsea headhunters football hooligans and there are admittedly some unlikely coincidences involved such as two of the headhunters burgling a house that belongs to... but unlike Love's later OUTLAW you never feel at how contrived these plot twists are which probably says much of the film's entertainment factor . It could also be that the original source was strong in the first place since I get the feeling that Love totally fails as a screenwriter of original material , certainly the problem with OUTLAW was an underdeveloped script with very underwritten characters who lacked a recognisable motive . Here it's obvious but never overstated that the motivation of becoming a hooligan is to belong to something . And unlike in OUTLAW when something funny happens in THE FOOTBALL FACTORY you genuinely do laugh instead of scratching your head wondering if in fact it's supposed to be funny

I have to confess that I've seen the feature films of Love back to front . I saw OUTLAW when it opened in the cinema in March , I saw THE BUSINESS a couple of months after that and saw THE FOOTBALL FACTORY for the first time last week . If Nick Love had released his films in that order then I would have said that here is a film maker who is really hitting his stride as his films just get better and better . Unfortunately what this means in reality is that Love is on a downhill curve and that nothing has come close to matching THE FOOTBALL FACTORY . One can only hope that the big screen remake of THE SWEENEY , a TV show well remembered for its mixture of black comedy and violence , will see a return to form for an underrated auteur

Before he joined EastEnders, I knew the sweary cockney actor for films like Human Traffic and Severance, and of course his many straight-to-DVD releases, EastEnders has given him the opportunity to get away from his usual hard man character, when it comes to his film career, this is the film most people know him for, directed by Nick Lowe (The Business, The Sweeney). Basically Tommy Johnson (Danny Dyer) is a member of a Chelsea hooligan firm, his friends and fellow hooligans are his best friend Rod King (Neil Maskell),hot- tempered Billy Bright (Frank Harper),and young and impulsive members Zeberdee (Roland Manookian) and Raf (Calum MacNab). Tommy's pensioner and veteran grandfather Bill Farrell (EastEnders' Dudley Sutton) is disappointed as Tommy spends his days drinking, using drugs, womanising and fighting, Bill 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, Chelsea firm leader Harris (Tony Denham) is furious by these actions, especially by Billy's aggressive outbursts. Other things going on include Rod beginning a relationship with court clerk Tamara (Sophie Linfield),she pressures him to skip his weekend meets, and Billy's house being accidentally robbed by Zeberdee and his friend Raff, Billy himself deals with increased loneliness overhearing his irrelevance to Harris, and Bill's friend Albert dies the night before they are due to leave for Australia. Tommy is caught and held hostage by the brother of a girl he picked up at a club, Shian (Michele Hallak),Rod saves him, hitting the man on the head with a cricket bat, the brother turns out also be the brother of the rival Millwall firm's leader, Fred (Tamer Hassan),who is hunting Tommy down. Throughout the various characters encounter a racist taxi driver (EastEnders' Jamie Foreman),this is a subplot recurring. All the fighting culminates in a battle between the Chelsea and Millwall firms, with Tommy severely beaten up, ending up in hospital with Bill who has suffered a heart attack. In the end Tommy remains with the firm, Bill moves to Australia, Billy Bright is imprisoned for seven years, Zeberdee is killed by a drug dealer, this was a dream that Tommy kept being tormented by. Also starring EastEnders' Kara Tointon as Tameka. Dyer as the leading star and narrator certainly serves his purpose as a low-life football hooligan, the other actors do their parts fine as well, there is no real storyline as such, it is really a view into the life of a thug who like to beat people up and loves football, it does not hold back with the violence, so it neither condoning or condemning it, I could not follow everything going on, but overall I found it an average British sports crime drama. Worth watching!