Hooligans at War: North vs. South

As indie as indie movies go, North Vs South looks incredibly low budget with blurry camera work including a variety of people walking infront of the camera and pan shots that cut people's heads off.

Amongst the monotonous style, wading through the slow pacing there are moments of salvation. This movie can only be compared to watching Millwall, dull, boring and aching for it to finish, but the fight scenes and a particular scene in a strip club brought a little bit of West Ham to the proceedings. Professional, tidy, premier league.

The military scenes are watchable, they play out with more intensity than the rest of the movie and really add a nice little flashback to the story, they are well directed and this reason alone keeps me watching the full 80 minute duration.

I will watch anything and I mean anything from Gilgi to Titanic to Platoon to American sniper it doesn't matter how good or how bad or what type of film it is ill give it a bash. Wow what to say about this film, maybe I'll tell the people I don't like to watch it to make myself feel good. What I can say is bad acting, REALLY bad military interaction with likes to Uniforms, weapon systems terminology all round big no no's (BBC's My Girl style) There are too many films that are trying to use the military (my opinion) to boost the story line. There is one bit of the film where the CGI is that bad it's like a flash game on the internet. Poor story line weak main characters, I just wanted to the film to end I didn't care what happened. Sorry, but try again.

I have total respect and admiration for Chris Bell, knowing what its like to produce on a zero or shoe string budget, its never going to be perfect and mistakes made may not be able to be rectified in the final cut, but that is no reason not to go ahead with the distribution.

Chris produced this film in a very short time scale that was placed upon him and I know he worked endlessly with cast and crew to do what in the end, when it comes down to the nuts and bolts a lot of hard work. He is to be congratulated on his steadfastness to start a project and get it done, not many at our level can say the same.

Hooligan / thug type films are not my thing, these story lines usually follow a pattern, but this had a nice little twist towards the end, that made me curious to know what could possible happen next, something I look forward to finding out.

Colour grading was a little patchy and I would have liked to have seen it in full colour, taking it down to black and white and the use of pastels in areas did nothing for me, it was more of an unnecessary distraction than anything, but I know the effect he was after so it did not take my mind off the story line.

I really like the mood in places, the hard mean and outspoken slang and body language blending in well with the surroundings, heightening the levels of the atmosphere in the scenes.

There was at times a seriousness in the pace of the action as well as comedy, time for reflection and family life and some scenes that brought the gangland culture to the heights of real life, that made me realise we are all human and no matter your life style we all have to put up with these demons, so there was a sense of normality within the script and I liked that. The named characters fitted in, well chosen and you can see why he made those choices from his cast.

I liked the use of the various locations, you can relate to the gangland culture to these places and they fitted in very well and were used to the productions advantage.

At the end of the day its about budget, but its also about the individual and his will to succeed, Chris Bell is a hard worker and given the budget his ideas can only in time be better rewarded.

Well done to all involved its a film produced with hard work, work that is underestimated by those who easily criticise and never truly understand what it takes.

There is a future for this film maker and I hope he never stops pursuing making films that obviously so many enjoy.

Overall I enjoyed the film, like I said not my thing as a theme, so for me to see it through to the end means it kept my attention throughout and if it did that then I'm more than happy to recommend it to others.

A film from An enthusiastic hard working up and coming film maker that is Chris Bell

Right. Mr Stedmans excuse that this was 'low budget' is, like the film, absolute tripe. He must have been involved in making this embarrassing mess. My kid could make a cake out of mud and thinks its great, yet no one would enjoy it. A bit like this. Time will judge Smith and Bells appalling record.

All I wanted to say about this dreadful waste of time is that it is laughably bad, but apparently I need to use more words than that.

Everything about this film is terrible. The acting, directing, script, storyline, soundtrack. There is no tension, no depth in the characters or script and the fight scenes are like something off Magic Roundabout. Even after overlooking the historical inaccuracies of the scenes in Bosnia this is just one massive joke. And the joke was on me sitting right through it. Not one of the actors in this would get a decent part in a local am dram group.

Yes, it is low budget but that is no excuse, I've seen many decent films on a low budget This film just looks like it was a load of mates with a poor quality camera just playing about. An utter waste of time.