Dir. Jesse Johnson, US, 2009, 94 mins
Cast: Ross McCall, Graham McTavish, Vernon Wells
Review by Richard Hawes
It may not be as fondly remembered as The Football Factory, but 2005's football hooligan drama Green Street certainly made an impression. As curious as it was controversial, it miscast Hollywood actor Elijah Wood as a tourist who joins a violent British gang of West Ham supporters. Picking up where that film left off, the DVD sequel is equally intriguing.
Set in prison, a confined location popular with budget-conscious producers, there's something incredibly distracting about every scene in Green Street 2: Stand Your Ground. Despite its English setting and authentic cast of British actors, including Star Trek's glamorous Marina Sirtis cast convincingly against type as a prison guard, this does not feel like a British movie. That's because it's American and was shot in California.
Commendably, the filmmakers have gone out of their way to try not to compromise the very Britishness of the film's themes. They hired California-based English director Jesse Johnson and there are no Americans attempting British accents. But there was no disguising the fact the film was shot nowhere in the UK. When familiar Hollywood stuntmen Matthias Hues, Jerry Trimble and Nils Allen Stewart appear, as well as Australian actor Vernon Wells as the prison governor, it only becomes more confusing.
Criticisms aside it's hard to fault the efforts. It would have been so easy to follow Elijah Wood's character (even if it had been recast) and rework the story in an American setting. It would certainly make it more internationally commercial. Instead the story, which takes place in the almost immediate aftermath of the violent confrontation at the end of the first film, shifts to one of the more affordable supporting players, Ross McCall reprising his role as Green Street Elite member Dave.
Like its predecessor, Green Street 2 invites you to sympathise with yobs. A punk rock soundtrack is used to create the sense that these are anarchic, rebellious figures. But unlike the first the prison setting makes it quite clear that they are not heroes. Only by juxtaposing the protagonists to more brutal hooligans, led by Rambo's Graham McTavish, and showing us the hero's loving wife do we come to sympathise with them. A trick familiar to most prison movies where the hero has not been wrongly convicted.
Made primarily for a British audience, Jesse Johnson's B-movie stands its ground as a distinctly different but faithful sequel that fans of the original film and of director Johnson are sure to enjoy.
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