Green Street II: Stand Your Ground

Title: Green Street (Hooligans) II: Stand Your Ground
Rating: 1.5/5
Genre: Drama, Action
Starring: Ross McCall

In a slight twist from my usual review style, this opening paragraph will deal with expectations, having seen the first film but not yet the sequel. The first, set largely around East London (an area I know well) was wrought with difficulties. From the glamorisation and excessive use of fights (here’s some news folks; they don’t happen. Certainly nothing as excessive as was displayed here), the overdone unrealistic ‘cockney’ accent and not in the least the clearly problematic matter of the German director. Despite this, the end result displayed a sense of morality, about standing up for yourself despite your stature, with a gritty outlook and actually filmed on location, it wasn’t as bad as it easily could have been. Here we have a sequel which, despite the somewhat worrying premise, has an English director at the helm, perhaps showing promise for the result.

How wrong was I? Following the story of “Dave Miller” (McCall) from the first film, now serving time for the conclusion of the last film, it isn’t long before he gets transferred to a prison with some Millwall (their rival gangs) supporters, arrested in the same incident. Things kick off with plenty of violence, throw in the cliché crooked prison warden and finish with an inevitable football match for their freedom; the entire film comes across as confused as to what it wants to accomplish, not a simple re-write, it instead feels like it tried too hard to be capable of standing apart from its predecessor, becoming a confusing mix of the Russians from “Fortress II,” the excessive use of slow-motion from “300,” and a predictable ending stolen from “Mean Machine.”

The accents are back in their overemphasised glory, adding bad Russian and Jamaican to the mix, and despite the nationality of the new director he inexplicably believes it best to film in what is clearly a foreign country (I *wish* we had weather as warm as that), all of the issues I had with the first are back and as bad as ever; the violence is more excessive than ever, and whilst perhaps entertaining in a mindless way don’t feel particularly special. The soundtrack is predictably generic hard rock for the most part, hard hitting to emphasise certain scenes but again of little note. What is of note – and this is what really bugs me – is the pre-conception that there was some form of dramatic plot underneath this mindless action.

McCall, an actor I noted from the first with enough talent to not necessarily be top-flight but maintain a believable enough character, entirely overshadows the rest of the cast. The acting is appalling, from his wooden and generic lackeys who are only there to give him someone to talk to, to the ‘top boy’ for Millwall only capable of swearing like a man with tourrettes syndrome. The Russian lackeys only capable of occasionally grunting and the token black prison guard with all the emotional capability of a brick wall; I think it becomes fairly apparent that forming any kind of emotional attachment to any of the characters becomes impossible, and hence the ‘drama’ aspect of the film quickly becomes relegated to ‘that-scene-where-nobody-got-thumped.’ It’s not an entirely worthless effort – the action scenes are performed well enough to keep you awake – but there’s most definitely better.