Hooligans & Thugs: Football's Most Violent Fans

Neil · 06-29-2005, 12:09 AM

I just got done watching Hooligans & Thugs: Football's Most Violent Fans. It's a documentary on the history of hooliganism in England, All of Europe, and South America. It's narrated by Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols and is pretty hardcore as far as violence. It's basically the largest collection of hooligan violence videos I've ever seen.

It's not a bad film if you can stomach the dark side of soccer, and its overll message is good. Trying to educate fans to the destruction caused by the mob mentality. I liked it, but some may find it highly offensive.

Here's the movie site if you want more info, there's also a trailer there...
http://www.hooligansandthugs.com/

HibaIssa · 06-29-2005, 12:41 AM

Looks interesting. I'll have to check that out. Thanks.

dysko · 06-29-2005, 12:41 AM

Neil,

Where did you see it? I would love to see it, but don't really want to buy it without viewing it first.

Deweyville · 06-29-2005, 06:31 AM

I just moved it to the next-in-line on my Netflix queue.
Has anybody seen FIFA Fever?

HibaIssa · 06-29-2005, 07:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deweyville

I just moved it to the next-in-line on my Netflix queue.

Yay! So I guess I'll be seeing it soon.

Old Ska · 06-29-2005, 08:22 AM

I sort of enjoyed this movie, but its value as a documentary is dubious. It was made like a Fox tv special...under the guise of educating but really just for people to have an excuse to watch people beat each other up. It essentially leaves out the best and most recent explanations by the large group of British sociologists who study football violence on what are the causes. Most of the really good recommendations I recieved when this first came out were from former hard-core British hooligans who were proud their crew meritted a mention. Furthermore, of the actual footage I didn't see anything that I hadn't seen several times before. I did think the South American portion was kind of interesting, but again important socio-economic contextual information was sacrificed for the purpose of glorifying violence.

Think about it...as much as I like Steve Jones, if he is who they chose to narrate, you can guess what the tenor of the movie is like.