Movie Crush Monday: CT & Green Street Hooligans

Happy Monday Readers! 

Well I have to be honest with you, this was the toughest week I've had in picking a Movie Crush to write about. Little C gave me The World's End, which has pretty much all of my favorite British actors in it. And most of them have been in a ton of movies together. So really, we could have spent about a year circling around this group of actors. 

But I wound around in their various filmographies until I followed the charming Rafe Spall (who I personally don't think gets nearly enough credit, but that's probably a post for another day) to a movie that I watched so many times in college that I can still quote whole sections of it. 

That's right friends. Green Street Hooligans is probably one of my favorite movies of all time. Which is weird considering I don't really like soccer and I barely like movies about violent games. I saw it the first time at a friend's house in high school and I felt... transported. Like I wasn't in my totally white bread Denver suburb anymore. Like I was on the gritty streets of London ready to be in a riot. 

Of course I am probably the last person who would ever be in a street riot following a soccer match, but that's the joy of movies like this. We get introduced to the world of English football firms through Elijah Wood's character, an American who's actually less likely to be there than even I am. And so we feel like we get tough as he does, we learn how to defend ourselves along with him. 

Elijah Wood gives one of my favorite performances to date in Green Street Hooligans. And he's in good company. Charlie Hunnam is the firm's leader, and he's built a layered and round character. In fact, all of these characters are full and complex. They're never just thugs. 

In fact, the whole world that Green Street Hooligans builds is complicated and gritty. No one is all good or all bad. They're people who firmly believe in what they believe, and they're willing to give and take quite a beating for it. 

Our roommate admitted to me that she's never actually seen Green Street Hooligans, so our house is due for a re-watch. If you haven't seen it, you definitely should. 

Happy watching!

CT