STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning <br /><br />John (Reece Dinsdale) and his team are sent undercover to infiltrate the thuggish Shadwell Town Firm, and especially 'the generals' the men in charge of organizing the violence. However, his values and dreams come to clash with his profession and he finds himself turning into someone else as he slowly transforms from an undercover copper...into a true hooligan.<br /><br />With football violence being a common theme for films nowadays, and with the release of new film The Firm, it's good I got a chance to see this film again that was one of the earlier films to deal with the matter (aside, of course, from the original The Firm.) Lead star Dinsdale is now famous as Joe Morton in Coronation Street, and his northern accent would appear to be his true one. Thus, here it's easier to pick apart his feigned cockney accent, as well as co star Warren Clarke, who'd also become more well known in time.<br /><br />There's no 'acted football' on display, but you fail to really get into the nitty gritty of the violence, either. Some hammy writing/acting also lowers the tone, and a tendency to veer into theatrical operatics loses it some points. John emerges as a man who has to feel powerful in some way, and hooliganism comes to provide it more than the police force, only for that to go pear shaped at the end and, despite showing no racist signs through out the film, he shaves his head and takes part in a National Front march. If only the screenplay had been a bit more subtle and the dialogue more real, it could have provided a great character study if not a shattering insight into the world of football violence. **