ID2: Shadwell Army

Not exactly picking off where the first film ended,The viewer will find themselves thrust into the rough end of London and mixing it with the hard men who run the manors. Mo, an Asian cop (read: Muslim) undercover with Shadwell FC attempts to infiltrate the clubs firm and shut it down from the inside. Along the way he meets an other undercover officer with a different type of mission and the two men become allies. The action isn't as realistic as the original and the story is kind of hackneyed. One saving grace is the return of lovable tard Gumbo, who appeared in the original and offers some light comic relief. All in all this has too cheap a feel to it and the fights scenes are simply not realistic enough.

Ok so nothing is going to beat the original. Yes it's low budget but the script and acting make the plot plausible. Give it a shot for an enjoyable trip down memory Lane with Gumbo.

For those of you who remember the mid-nineties hooligan film ID, forget it, this is so loosely related they may as well have just called it Shadwell Army.

There's a couple of decent performances (Pearson csn play a smarmy guy like no other) but fundamentally there is nothing that stands out or makes you remember the actor or the character. The story has some good ideas, but the 3xecution lacks something, and it feels like a made for TV movie.

You're much better off watching the original or investing your time in Footsoldier or Green Street.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Many years after the events of the original film, the social and political climate of Shadwell has changed considerably, and a new generation of disaffected men has emerged. Mo (Simon Rivers) a British Sikh officer working his way up the ladder in the Met, is the latest charge assigned to infiltrate the ranks of the infamous Shadwell Army gang. He crosses paths with Vinnie (Linus Roache) a fellow undercover officer who's dealing with an extremist far right element of the group, headed by a local politician (Neil Pearson), who is exploiting tensions surrounding the opening of a new mosque in the area.

It's never too late to make a sequel to a film these days, and this follow up to 1995's cult football hooligan drama I.D., is one of many that caught me completely by surprise. Picking a handful of memorable characters from the first film (including Lee Ross as the impaired simpleton Gumbo) whilst completely leaving out a load of others (most notably Reece Dinsdale's striking lead character John), it still fails to connect them together in a manner that would let you know they had a history from the first film.

Set in a modern Britain nearly twenty five years on from then, it highlights some simmering tensions and divisions that are very relevant to these times, and there's a lot of interesting potential to explore with these themes, as well as the generally shocking element of the football violence. Sadly, none of it really manages to engage you in the way it should, and it just goes through the motions without any real coherency or focus.

It has the original's staunch and spirit. If only it had it's substance. **

...to see two sub-genres disappear into the mist of time. The 'Geezer-Geezer-have-aword-wiv-yerself-Gangster film' and the 'Isn't Football Violence Terrible? let's wallow in some film' ID2 is a waste of digital space, making no useful contribution. It is a wonderful example, however, of the 10/10 IMDB review from users who mysteriously only feel the need to join the site and review one film in their lives. Strange. Perhaps DVDs and BluRays should credit these people on the crew list, y'know in the interest of transparent.