Home
Football Factory (2004) follows the story of Tommy Johnson, a mid-20’s cockney caught up in the hooligan craze; the story shows the experiences his goes through whilst with his football firm and mainly the build up and rival fight against Millwall. Ultimately re-evaluating his life and questioning his morals, he loves his weekend thrill but knows that he can’t possibly fight forever.
The film is based around the firm ‘Headhunters’ who support Chelsea F.C. and their rival gang the ‘Bushwackers’ who represent Millwall F.C. The film also features firms from other clubs around the country such as Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and Stoke city. Whilst on a night out with his best mate Rod, they meet two women in a bar. After persuading them to go to the girls place, they jump in a taxi only to fall asleep from binge drinking and the drugs they’d taken previously that night. Tommy wakes up in the woman’s house to be faced by her psychotic brother with a knife to his throat. Saved by Rod, by hitting the aggressive brother ‘round the canister’ as so nicely put by Tommy himself. Not to their knowledge, the guy they knocked out was also the rival firms (millwall) little brother, once the smoke cleared millwall now had a personal vendetta against Tommy’s firm. After a lot of anticipation the clubs finally meet in the FA cup draw, Tommy goes against his gut feeling and follows his firm to meet his rivals. Finally ending with him getting beaten to a pulp by a group of rivals under a bridge before getting broken up by the police. The last scene was Tommy walking through London with his voice over questioning whether it was right to continue his mindless adrenaline addiction thus ending it with the famous quote: Was it all worth it? ‘Course it F**king was!
I like this film because there are not many British films that show what life in London is really like. I prefer this film to other films of its type (green street hooligans) as it portrays a lot more realism compared to its counterparts. The movie describes what its like to be a young not so successful man with a dead end job inevitably getting caught up in the drink, drugs and sex craze. The film itself was a rather small budgeting film with a budget of only £500,000. And wasn’t the biggest success in the box office only making £607,000 in the first month. Again it didn’t go down too well with the critics either, getting just an average rating all round, IMDB gave it a 6.8 which isn’t too bad. Because of the low budget there wasn’t much when it came to marketing either, which was probably why it didn’t do too well in the cinema.
Overall though I think because it wasn’t such a big block buster success, that’s what made it even more British. This has similarities with Tommy Johnson, just an average film, nothing more nothing less.
The film is based around the firm ‘Headhunters’ who support Chelsea F.C. and their rival gang the ‘Bushwackers’ who represent Millwall F.C. The film also features firms from other clubs around the country such as Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and Stoke city. Whilst on a night out with his best mate Rod, they meet two women in a bar. After persuading them to go to the girls place, they jump in a taxi only to fall asleep from binge drinking and the drugs they’d taken previously that night. Tommy wakes up in the woman’s house to be faced by her psychotic brother with a knife to his throat. Saved by Rod, by hitting the aggressive brother ‘round the canister’ as so nicely put by Tommy himself. Not to their knowledge, the guy they knocked out was also the rival firms (millwall) little brother, once the smoke cleared millwall now had a personal vendetta against Tommy’s firm. After a lot of anticipation the clubs finally meet in the FA cup draw, Tommy goes against his gut feeling and follows his firm to meet his rivals. Finally ending with him getting beaten to a pulp by a group of rivals under a bridge before getting broken up by the police. The last scene was Tommy walking through London with his voice over questioning whether it was right to continue his mindless adrenaline addiction thus ending it with the famous quote: Was it all worth it? ‘Course it F**king was!
I like this film because there are not many British films that show what life in London is really like. I prefer this film to other films of its type (green street hooligans) as it portrays a lot more realism compared to its counterparts. The movie describes what its like to be a young not so successful man with a dead end job inevitably getting caught up in the drink, drugs and sex craze. The film itself was a rather small budgeting film with a budget of only £500,000. And wasn’t the biggest success in the box office only making £607,000 in the first month. Again it didn’t go down too well with the critics either, getting just an average rating all round, IMDB gave it a 6.8 which isn’t too bad. Because of the low budget there wasn’t much when it came to marketing either, which was probably why it didn’t do too well in the cinema.
Overall though I think because it wasn’t such a big block buster success, that’s what made it even more British. This has similarities with Tommy Johnson, just an average film, nothing more nothing less.
