The Firm (1989) Film Review

(February 2022)

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‘We just love to fight!”- The mantra for many a great Englishman.

The Firm is a love letter to football fandoms and a warm warning to the dangers of extreme hooliganism, as well as the violent extremes of toxic masculinities perpetuated throughout football culture. Its Nationalistic tones are also a nod to British Pride, the Pride of English football fans for their team and country.

The film is a fashionable nostalgia trip, from the teeny tiny football shorts and it being £100 for three train tickets from London to Birmingham! Its representation of the 1980s ‘Man who has it all’ is fascinating, like an English ‘American Psycho’.

A yuppie Monday to Friday and a Freudian wet dream come weekend, men deliciously indulging their primal urges with fanboy violence over football… of all things.

Given the current state of football culture (extreme Hooliganism (Ultras), racism) and having its own Policing Unit since 2005 and all, it’s almost nice (?) to see the culture hasn’t really changed since the 1980’s.

Football culture can be notoriously volatile, but fandoms are Clans, as seen by Bex (Gary Oldman) and the ‘ICC’ boys. A ‘firm’ is a brotherhood, a clan, a ‘you and me’ culture as much as it’s an ‘us and them culture’. ‘The Firm’ shows the protectiveness and loyalty of the 1980s male bravado, as much as it shows the sensationalised fan-on-fan violence.

Football will always be a prideful sport, tearing people apart as much as it brings them together: I’ll look after you, if you follow the same team as me, if you will.