Red Army Hooligans

This is not your typical Hooligan film. It has its moments of violence but there's is a deeper story behind it all. Great performances from everyone across the board! Highly recommend this film so check it out on VOD and DVD!

I was excited to see a bunch of World Cup 2018 themed hooligan movies hitting the shelves but the more I watch, the more that excitement wanes. I love a good hooligan film and when you throw in some Ruskieploitation, there's scope for entertainment. And it's topical too. World Cup! Russian hooligans! C'mon! This should be easy. It should write itself. You don't need much.

However, at the very least, you'd expect some football, some hooligans, maybe some Russian hooligans... I dunno. I mean, the cover art suggests all manner of stuff that looks great but isn't here. What you do get is a bizarro home video - which surely can't have cost more than a grand or so to make? - with an incomprehensible plot, a snail's pace and a seemingly intentional desire to not please anyone.

This one grew on my while watching it. At the beginning it seemed a bit all over the place with few connections with football, firms or hooligans but soon enough i´ve realized that that connection is never established because this is not a movies about any of that. This low key movie, with decent acting in some places, is all about a man trying to catch up with his lost memories while suffering from a brain damaged suffered in a fight. To me it´s hard to understand why anyone would choose this subtext to touch this subject but i did like it in the end because it all made a nice contrast.

It's a very slow film, completely lacking in a clear structure, and is made even harder to watch by how hideous it looks. It's not that director Steven Smith or his cameraman have no ability to frame a shot. Quite often you can see what they're going for and think "that could look good if they had some equipment" but unfortunately, by shooting the whole thing on a potato it looks like it's being beamed in from a pirate TV station in Antarctica.

What's saddest about this is that I'm a man of limited requirements here. I just want to see some men in football shirts duffing up some other men with comedy Russian accents. Ideally outside a football ground. I'm not asking for an Oscar winning epic. It's a shame that, with evident creative freedom to do whatever they wanted, the makers of Red Army Hooligans have made such a strange, slow mess of a film that cheats its audience out of the very simple thing they want to see.

Truly bad, do not waste your time on this movie unless you want to watch someone eating toast and drinking tea. Go get a copy of football factory or I.D. Do not be fooled by the cover!!