Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: This is Fight Club without the irony or the metaphysical gaming. Read more
Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times: The movie forces you into primal alertness, its effectiveness enhanced by exceptional casting and escalating tension that plays on your emotions. Read more
G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle: Terrific because director Lexi Alexander, a German, brings an authentic feel to English hooliganism -- this is a brutal yet tremendously entertaining film -- and treats it very seriously. Read more
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: This is a brutal, insightful look at a side of sports most Americans don't even know about. Read more
Bob Longino, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: It swims and sinks in melodrama. Read more
Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic: It's what you thought Fight Club was going to be, before it went in a whole other (and far more interesting) direction. Read more
Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Unfortunately, the beatings are often more interesting than what's caused them. Read more
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: The steady diet of brutal street fighting makes it all but impossible to connect with this picture, despite whatever visceral appeal it may offer. Read more
Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: At its best, the movie navigates an intriguing moral tightrope between the fetishization of bloodshed and the outright condemnation of it. Read more
John Anderson, Newsday: Alexander's techniques occasionally get a bit too fancy, but the movie has a kinetic energy and intelligence that score. Read more
Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: Although the central message is questionable and the plot is packed with contrivances, the film makes for an engaging treatise on a subculture. Read more
Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: Hooligans delivers two main points - that family is where you find it, and that violence can be as intoxicating, to some, as a drug. Read more
Manohla Dargis, New York Times: A feature-length folly about the terrors and self-affirming joys of football (that is, soccer) hooliganism. Read more
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The message is that violence is hard-wired into men, if only the connection is made. Read more
Joe Leydon, Variety: Pic amply demonstrates that Alexander -- director of Johnny Flynton, 2003 Oscar nominee for dramatic short -- has the chops to bring a fresh take to onscreen rough stuff. Read more
Peter L'Official, Village Voice: Hooligans loses the plot late though -- in the filmic and Brit-speak sense -- revealing Hollywood, not hooligan, roots. Read more
Desson Thomson, Washington Post: Soccer needs this movie like Georgia needed Deliverance. Read more