Nice effects though.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

THE RISE AND FALL OF A WHITE COLLAR HOOLIGAN is an odd attempt to mix two popular straight-to-DVD sub-genres: the London gangster flick and the London football hooligan flick. The resultant film is an entire mess of a production, with little discernible story, more clichés than you can shake a stick at, and an almost entire lack of coherence.The narrative involves a thuggish football hooligan type - a knuckle-dragger with zero charisma and yes, he's the protagonist - who finds himself involved in a new job as a courier, delivering computer technology around the city. His boss is played by Simon Phillips, who still hasn't got any more charisma than he had in JACK FALLS. Everyone's favourite Cockney stereotype Billy Murray appears in support as some kind of crime kingpin.The story is a never-ending mess of random street fights and violence mixed out with some excruciating melodrama involving various love interests. There's a trip to France and a spell in prison, and a twist ending of sorts, but it's all completely horrible, of course, and almost entirely without merit.

The idea while not the most original was interesting and could have been a decent movie if done right. Sadly, apart from Nick Nevern's intensely brooding lead performance, there is little that is right about The Rise and Fall of a White Collar Hooligan. The movie is not exactly amateurish to look at strictly speaking but it does have a rather drab look to it, there are scenes where it is good to have it but the scam/thriller moments were in serious need of more slickness. The soundtrack is not fitting at all and as music is dull and not memorable in the slightest. The dialogue is embarrassingly ham-fisted and while the swearing was appropriate within the type of movie it was the use of it was overkill, literally every other word. There is a little bit of violence, though surprisingly not particularly much. Considering the brutality of the language, you'd think the violence would match that, I personally was surprised at how played too safe it seemed. The very cobbled-together story handles the various themes(which it doesn't balance particularly well) with no depth to it and it all seemed rather half-hearted, not only that but for a 75 minute movie there wasn't anywhere near enough story to sustain it and to make up for it there are a lot of padded clichéd scenes. There are no characters to properly root for, they are so generic and parody-like, and apart from Nevern the acting comprises of actors who play themselves(Billy Murray), use forced delivery(Roland Manookian) or who can't do anything with their roles(pretty much everybody else). To conclude, decent potential that goes nowhere. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Watched this one on a whim simply because it was lying around close to me on a boring day... did i expect it to be decent?...maybe. Did i expect it to be as good as i thought (8 out of 10) NO! This was a pleasant surprise for me - its not solely football based...in fact its not football hooligan based at all bar a couple scenes. Its more about credit card fraud done by a group of guys who also like the odd bit of football hooliganism. It made a change after seeing so many football based films like Firm, Football Factory, Green Street etc. The credit card fraud storyline works... its a thought out scam that you can imagine working and the storyline kept me watching without wanting to turn off. I see this has a lot of general negative reviews on here and i really don't think it deserves it. A solid 7 for me.

im a huge fan of British gangster movies, especially the gritty one's like 'rise of the footsoldier' 'bonded by blood' 'the crew' 'clubbed' and 'the take', and although this movie isn't as good as any of them, its still a well made, and very enjoyable gangster movie, now anybody expecting a football hooligan film, will be very disappointed, as there is none here, a couple of scenes at the beginning, this is really more like 'rise of the footsoldier' in that it's one man's descent into the murky life of gangland, and the bad that comes with that. at 80 minutes long, its certainly not an epic, but the story is well told and the film well made, the cast are good enough, and the soundtrack is good too, the movie is quite violent at times, but nothing that compares to 'footsoldier' and 'bonded by blood'. i cant wait for there new film ' the fall of the essex boys' as they certainly know how to craft a good gangland thriller.