Director Nick Love knows how to pick up a poisoned chalice. In choosing to tackle a modern day take on Alan Clarke’s 1989
The Firm, he risks the wrath of upsetting those who regard the original so highly, while also being accused of jumping aboard the remake bandwagon. As it turns out, though, he gets away with it all.
Love’s version of The Firm wisely uses the early film as inspiration rather than a firm template. Thus, while the setting remains underground football violence, Love switches the attention to a different character, the youngster breaking into the crowd. This allows the narrative to focus on his becoming accepted by the group, and then his struggle to break free, which settles into a solid three-act story.
It’s very much aimed at an adult audience, but that doesn’t mean that The Firm is a cheap piece of cinema. Far from it, as it happens. Love’s film mixed in sharp violence with sparks of humour, and does so to very good effect. In the process, it sidesteps comparisons to the original by simply going off in a different direction, and works well because of it. It’s a little more tempered than some of Nick Love’s earlier work too, but perhaps as a consequence, it’s also his best film to date. --Jon Foster
Product Description
Loosely adapted from Alan Clarke's 1989 classic TV film, Nick Love's The Firm is set earlier in the '80s and retells a similar story to the original - but from a different character's point of view. The film centres on Dom, a young wannabe football casual, who gets drawn into the charismatic but dangerous world of the firm's top boy, Bex.
Accepted for his fast mouth and sense of humour, Dom soon becomes one of the boys. But as Bex and his gang clash with rival firms accross the country and the violence spirals out of control, Dom realises he wants out - until he learns it's not that easy to simply walk away.
Humourous, heart warming and set to a killer jazz funk 80's soundtrack, The Firm is a classic coming of age story set amongst one of England's most revered tribes.
Daniel Mays, Camille Coduri, Doug Allen, Calum McNab, Ebony Gilbert, Paul Anderson, Eddie Webber, Joanne Matthews, Ben Shockley, Richie Campbell & Joe Jackson
Nick Love
18 years and over
2009
Widescreen 2.35:1
English
Zdjęcie poglądowe, okładki mogą się różnić.
AGBB002TXB2V2
