In his younger days, Danny Dyer was an actor of some promise, but he has long since become a parody of himself and writer/director Nick Love has a dismal filmography. I have always been repulsed by books and films glamourising football hooliganism, so my expectations were very low for this.
Dyer plays Jack, a violent middle-aged drug-addled loser. After being arrested he has a few weeks to try to sort out his life, specifically to save his marriage.
I really felt like Love wanted to have his cake and eat it. On the surface it may seem that he is showing Jack and his friends to be terrible, but he shoots the violent scenes a little too lovingly, and makes them (especially Jack) more quick-witted than they would actually be. It also does not help that almost everyone not in their circle – with the exception of his long suffering wife Dani (Stephanie Leonidas) – are presented as being even more insufferable.
There were a couple of decent jokes, one about Harvey Weinstein and one about how terrible Tranmere is, but the relentless bad language became a bore and the ultimate portrayal of Jack as a plucky underdog did not work for me.
Rating: 3.5 out of 10