I was always put off by the awful title and was never quite sure what to expect as I never read any background info but I was really surprised how deep the movie was and the true story behind it is truly inspirational and humbling.
Sure, the film does tick all the requisite cliché boxes at times in terms of emotional manipulation but for one guy to turn his life around and dedicate it to a cause that is inspirational made great viewing. Intentional lack of spoilers here!
Oh man, I hadn't seen this film in over 20 years and what a curio it is. The world has gone to **** and the only way that temporary truces are sorted is by 60 foot high robots battling each other. This is Transformers meets Real Steel but obviously it cost around 10p and is hilarious at times (as well as being made 20 years earlier). You can spot the wires supporting the robots at times and the dialogue is terrible at times but this could really make for a quality remake considering CGI these days as the story itself has some great ideas. Nice trashy nostalgia.
Oh what a wasted opportunity this was. Directed by Donal McIntyre who is an undercover journalist that infiltrated the Chelsea firm and achieved criminal convictions meant that this should have been a very serious moral look at the culture of hooliganism but apart from a few scenes that expanded upon the genesis of the culture itself (West Ham V Millwall arriving from rival ship dockers in London dating back 100 years), it turned out to be a very Anglo centric confused look due to the voice over of Sean Bean that didn't know whether to despise or celebrate hooligans. Shame.