Touches You

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is scary stuff right here. Gary Oldman's performance as Bixie is chilling. As I'm always saying... Gary Oldman should play every role in every movie! Hahaha! The film is a very potent portrayal of a few gangs of English hooligans in the early 1980s. The majority of the film follows a three-gang dispute over which gang leader will become the "Best Boy" or Firm-leader. The Best Boy gets to lead a consolidated version of the three groups to Germany as the official English hooligan death squad or what-have-you. There are many scary sequences, with realistic evocations of hideous emotions, and the violent moments are sometimes difficult to watch. I've seen more violent stuff on similar subject matter, but this one resonates very deeply due to such sincere direction and acting. I don't enjoy violence in my film experiences, but here it is concise and frightening, so I think it is worth contemplating if one is rarely exposed to violence.The dialog here is thick East London borough English. There are optional subtitles for English, and I actually needed them to understand the dialog. The amount of rough slang thrown around here was way over my head. It was pretty awesome.I know a lot of people will be turned off by the subject matter. I'm not particularly enthralled by it myself, but this is a real peek into the dangerous hooligan scene of the 1980s. It features one of Oldman's best performances and his role causes the movie to be completely haunting even months later.A ridiculously well-made, scary movie.

The Firm is one of the most enjoyable films of the hooligan genre ever made. Although it was made for TV on what was obviously a very small budget, The Firm outshines its modern day, big screen counterparts such as Green Street and The Football Factory.Gary Oldman is superb and utterly convincing as Bex, the cocky estate agent who leads a double life as a violent member of the ICC, the West Ham hooligan firm of which he is 'Top Boy'. As the film progresses, Bex becomes more and more unstable as a result of his almost pathological obsession with defeating the leader of a rival firm named 'Yeti'. This obsession impacts on his family life to a great extent and culminates with Bex's untimely demise at the hands of his bitter rival.The cast is awash with recognisable (and typecast) British TV actors such as Steve McFadden from Eastenders. Oldman shines amongst them and he perfectly captures the violent mentality of Bex with his seething fits of pure rage. His performance shifts from arrogant comedian to brutal maniac throughout the movie.Certain elements of the film are disappointing, not least the ending which is far fetched it has to be said. However, at just over an hour in length, the film needed a definite conclusion in a short space of time. Also, some of the casting choices are poor, especially the character of young Dominic who is a totally unconvincing hooligan, even as an "under 5", a young newcomer to the ICC.People always complain that hooligan films are never realistic enough. My answer to that would be that there are plenty of documentaries out there on the subject. This is drama, and whereas The Firm does not offer complete realism, it is as close a dramatic depiction to real football violence as there is. Far more so than say, I.D, which was just plain ridiculous.Overall, The Firm is a great piece of raw film and well worth watching for Oldman's performance alone. It perfectly encapsulates the era of hooliganism in the greedy, late 1980's.Eight out of Ten

The firm is a film about the antics of football hooligans who were in their prime in the eighties and Gary Oldman is brilliant at portraying how moronic these idiots were . We se how his "Firm" battle against other local firms and we see how they were not afraid to stab,beat or even shoot each other in the name of fun. I am not myself going to say these idiots did (or still do) in the name of football because this is nothing to do with football , the sport i watch and love , it is a social problem. The ironic thing about these scum is that after beating each other up they gang together and beat foreign football to a pulp. The film is an insight and it is great to see Oldman in a film where he does not have to put on an American accent but if you want to see a better film on football hooligans watch " I.D " . 7 out of 10.

Different from the similarly-entitled Tom Cruise vehicle in much the same way that a punch in the head is different from a solicitor's letter, this is where the late great Alan Clarke - Britain's best TV director and perhaps the best British director of the 70s and 80s - finally got to work with Gary Oldman. Oldman is Bex, leader of a gang of football hooligans. His crew go head-to-head with another bunch of guys from Birmingham. That's pretty much the story.The insight, for which respect must be paid to screenwriter Al Ashton, is that these guys aren't poor white trash but professional men. Bex is an estate agent and when we first meet him he is selling a house to a couple by admitting to them frankly that it's rubbish. He shows them in and says "If this house don't sell itself I'm a monkey's uncle." Then he walks away down the path and, for a moment, scratches his armpits and gibbers like a chimp - an inspired bit of improv from Oldman.This was Oldman before he got into his period of being an American Ham - sharp, keenly observational and immensely likeable even though the character he's playing is a complete scumbag. There's a lot of violence, and violence in a Clarke film isn't a rowdy punchup, it's Stanley knives in the face and iron bars in the groin. A gun gets used towards the end, which I personally found a bit unrealistic.One of the most remarkable things about this movie is that at no point do you actually see a football. These guys aren't football fans, they're in it for the fighting. They were the energies that Margaret Thatcher unleashed and then affected to deplore. Guys like Bexy own much of Britain now.When Oldman got tired of acting in bad American cop thrillers, he showed what he'd learned from Clarke by making Nil By Mouth. The boy done good. The Firm was Clarke's last film; a year later he was dead from cancer. Don't miss it.