Movie Monday: On This Day...

I was thinking of what movie to do for today and I decided that, since I haven't seen a movie in the theater since Wolfman, I'd go for some sort of alternative selection. So I decided just to go with This Day in History from the History Channel and see if there were any movie-worthy events. Sadly, the only one directly made into a movie was the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team and I talked about Miracle last week. My bad.

Anyway, on this day in 2006, a British gang pulled off the largest robbery in the country's history. The six men stole over 53 million pounds (an absurdly large sum considering that the pound itself is an unnecessarily large currency).

They didn't make a movie about it, but I was thinking about British gangs and then I thought about Green Street Hooligans. So you get to hear about that.


Directed by Lexi Alexander, this gritty film looks into the world of British football gangs. (Note: Football means soccer, not football). When Matt Buckner (Elijah Wood) is wrongfully expelled from Harvard because of his roommate's cocaine habit, he decides to go abroad and visit his sister in London.

While there, he meets his sister's husband and, more importantly, his younger brother Pete Dunham (Charlie Hunnam). Pete is the leader of the Green Street Elite, a soccer gang (or firm) devoted to the team from West Ham. And in Britain, rabid fans don't just yell and drink beer and such, they beat each other half to hell on a daily basis.

Matt starts hanging out with Pete and, eventually, becomes part of the GSE. But there's trouble in the air when West Ham gets scheduled to play with their oldest rivals, Millwall, for the first time in years. Tensions come to a head, and both Pete and Matt have to make big decisions about who they are and where their loyalties lie.

This movie is all about fighting and soccer, two things I happen to enjoy watching a lot. But it also says a lot about people and how to live your life. Finding a balance between always fighting and letting the world walk all over you. In essence, you have to learn to pick your battles.