The Firm

Movies related to football have a tendency to circumnavigate credibility like Roy Race going around a defender, and none more so than Green Street, that cast Frodo Baggins as a West Ham firm hardman. I.D. was a noble stab at the same topic, but ultimately implausible. Neither of these movies can hold a blunt instrument to Alan Clarke's gritty 1988 portrayal of football violence, The Firm, with Gary Oldman in scintillating form as a psychotic football hooligan leading a double life (and possibly moonlighting as a David Seaman lookalike). Oldman is strangely magnetic and detestable at the same time, in a grim but realistic and eminently watchable piece.