Hooligans at War: North vs. South

Oh come on, move on from the generic "Essex Gangster" films with to many overdone Essex accents and too many expletives! It's a mish-mash of totally incomprehensible scenes with all the jumping from black and white to colour. Some of the army scenes are done pretty badly (ex army speaking here)and although they got the kit right, it's so clearly filmed in the UK! I lost interest in the film thirty or so minutes in, too many character plots and the film follows the usual rubbish of someone telling us in narration format who the people are as we would never work it out. All these films try and copy Lock, Stock and two Smoking Barrels but it don't work due to the budget problems.

It was only £5 from the bargain bin....Now on an auction site for £2.00!

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

Essentially this is a gangster flick with a nicely incorporated military element. Okay so there may be a few discrepancies with dates of the Bosnian war and the ages of the recruits in the basic training scenes but HOLD ON........You need to appreciate the film for what it is and what Chris Bell and the team have achieved on a minuscule budget! The story of two friends as their lives envelop from the military to top London gangsters. This is a well worked back drop to a very gutsy, hard hitting, gritty and cool British film........

There is plenty of action for the boys as well as some nicely acted scenes showing the complexities and intricacies of everyday relationships within a gangster lifestyle which isn't an easy thing to pull off but the film handles it well.

There are times when the editing / cutting isn't brilliant but we are not talking a Hollywood blockbuster budget here!! There are some nice one-liners and plenty of likable characters which makes the film easily watchable and the documentary style camera shots encompass you into the films ethos really well.

The two main characters Chris and Johnny are played beautifully by Chris Bell and Alan Lund showing the various layers of vulnerability as well as the hard man element.

I take my hat off to what Chris Bell, Steven M Smith and the team have done with this film which includes a lovely and clever twist in the plot!

I for one will be watching this film many times over and because of the way it is filmed and it's slight discrepancies it could easily be catapulted into cult status in years to come! Not a term I would use lightly.

Anything these guys do in future I will certainly watch!!!!

Sometimes I get the opportunity to watch a newly released film for free . I almost feel guilty about this sometimes . Almost . Honestly I do and when a new British movie comes out like last years heart pounding thriller '71 the least I can do is give it my support and hand over my money at the cinema and feel a burst of jingoistic pride that I've contributed to British film making . If I don't do this once in a while I feel I've committed an act of high treason so just imagine how I felt when I didn't pay to see HOOLIGANS AT WAR . Guilty with a capital G-U-I-L- T and Y . As soon as the opening credits finished I started becoming aware of something - if the makers of this piece of unwatchable compost don't recompense me 40 minutes of my life I wasted watching this they should be hanging their heads in utter shame

The film starts with a flashback to a British army camp in Bosnia 5 years ago and involves a battle scene . This will be in 2010 . SFOR had been replaced by EUFOR six years earlier and despite having never set foot in the country I can tell you there was no fighting between local militias and EUFOR soldiers going on in 2010 . I'm pretty sure Bosnia no longer has local ethnic militias that the country was notorious for in the 1990s . I suppose we can overlook this and the totally amateur production values if it sets up the story

Hold on there's another flashback after this as the basic training regiment in the mess hall . Mess halls at these locations are normally large halls crowded with young men in their late teens and early twenties with a hairstyle of number two at the sides and back and a number four cut on top . Not here where there's an intake of about a dozen men and they're all aged in their late twenties to mid thirties with various hairstyles and many of them are obvious salad dodgers who'd have trouble walking to the bus stop never minding lumping sixty pounds of equipment on their back up a steep hill . They're so hopeless at trying to convince us they're soldiers they wouldn't even get in to the local airsoft club because even they have standards . In fact the acting is so bad I wondered how any of them managed to get in to the Equity union . I'm not saying the acting is bad what I'm saying is that it's non existent and the casting must be some sort of joke

In fact the whole movie must be some sort of joke ! Sorry did I say movie ? I should have said "thing" and just left it at that because I'd be misleading you if I give the impression that this is going to get any distribution deal . HOOLIGANS AT WAR is obviously shot on a camcorder with a non professional cast and feels like it's trying to parody the likes of Guy Ritchie with a freeze frame and a voice over explaining who the character is . That's the only bit that really works but truth to be told it's really stealing someone elses idea . Really I know it's a cliché when people say "worst movie ever" but this is possibly the worst British film I've ever commentated on in all my years on this website . I've always been fair when reviewing a movie but there is not one saving grace about this film which I turned off after 40 minutes . Believe me if I don't watch a film until the end credits comes up that tells you everything. If someone got out an I-pod and filmed their drunken mates ad libbing an unscripted story as it went along then that would be a more satisfying cinematic film than the thing going under the title of HOOLIGANS AT WAR

I am now owed 40 minutes of my life back and I know that the makers of this thing have visited the page - they're ones who gave it a rating of more than one out of ten !

ETA May 2015 . Thanks for the nice message Chris and better luck next time

The positive reviews are obviously from people connected with the film because all they do is whine about it being a low budget film. Low budget is true, and you will see that the Bosnia shots are filmed in the UK but that does not forgive truly awful acting and a pathetic script. The story makes no sense, the casting is daft made worse by a whole bunch of fat people pretending to be the British army in Bosnia. Christ, if that's what's defending us we might as well give up now. I was not expecting Private Ryan meets Goodfellows but at the same time was not expecting ting Corporal Clot meets the Bash Street Kids.