Gary Oldman is Clive Bex' Bissell, an intelligent family man with a good job, who also happens to be the leader of the notorious East London hooligan firm, the Inner City Crew. Bex plans to unite rival gangs into a national firm to take to the European Championships, but that will mean defeating Oboe's Birmingham crew and the South London Buccaneers led by arch rival Yeti (Phil Davis). As Bex's craving for violence becomes an obsession, events spiral out of control. Alan Clarke's unflinching drama courted much controversy when it was first broadcast in a toned down version on the BBC. Now, it is rightly considered a masterpiece, due in no small part to the brilliance of Oldman's central performance one of the finest of his career. Newly transferred in HD, and available on Blu-ray for the very first time, The Firm is presented here in two versions: the never-before-seen Director's Cut, which re-instates a number of bold sequences previously considered too controversial for audiences; and the original BBC TV broadcast version. The complete Alan Clarke at the BBC is also available in DVD and Blu-ray box sets from the BFI.
Gary Oldman is Clive Bex' Bissell, an intelligent family man with a good job, who also happens to be the leader of the notorious East London hooligan firm, the Inner City Crew. Bex plans to unite rival gangs into a national firm to take to the European Championships, but that will mean defeating Oboe's Birmingham crew and the South London Buccaneers led by arch rival Yeti (Phil Davis). As Bex's craving for violence becomes an obsession, events spiral out of control. Alan Clarke's unflinching drama courted much controversy when it was first broadcast in a toned down version on the BBC. Now, it is rightly considered a masterpiece, due in no small part to the brilliance of Oldman's central performance one of the finest of his career. Newly transferred in HD, The Firm is presented here in two versions: the never-before-seen Director's Cut, which re-instates a number of bold sequences previously considered too controversial for audiences; and the original BBC TV broadcast version. The complete Alan Clarke at the BBC is also available in DVD and Blu-ray box sets from the BFI.
These days people are dangerously nostalgic about the sinister tackiness of the 1980s, but there's no stiffer antidote to such delusion than Alan Clarke's The Firm. This unforgettable film was made as a one-off drama for the BBC in 1988, but its cult following has grown steadily through video, thanks to a startling central performance from a young Gary Oldman, and the riveting manner in which Clarke captures the lethal, mindless energy of football hooliganism. Oldman plays Clive "Bexy" Bissell, working-class East London boy done good: a prosperous estate agent, proud homeowner, happy husband and doting father. But his chief pleasure is to be team leader ("top boy") of a bunch of overgrown yobs who attend football matches in order to cause violence. At weekends Bexy leads his "Inter City Crew" into rucks with rival warlords such as Yeti (Phil Davis) and Oboe (Andrew Wilde), in search of what he calls "the buzz", no matter the cost to his young family and his future prospects. The Firm was entirely shot on SteadiCam, enabling Clarke to drop the viewer right into the thick of the action and exploit some hair-raisingly authentic rowdiness from his talented cast. Among these thugs, soap fans will spot Eastenders' Steve McFadden and Charlie Lawson of Coronation Street. The Firm is a masterpiece of social-realist drama, and one of the most virulently anti-Thatcherite films of its time. An avid supporter of Everton FC, Clarke responded to Al Hunter's script because he felt that the vicious idiots spoiling football were a new breed of disgrace. The tabloids raised a stink about the film's violence, and the BBC delayed its broadcast until 1989. A year later, Alan Clarke died of cancer, But The Firm is a tremendous last testament from the finest English director of his generation. --Richard Kelly
Scum (1979): Raw, violent and shocking, Scum is a compelling story set in a contemporary Borstal. It tells of life in an institution run by violence and brutality rather than reason, where the boy who can fight his way to the top of the heap and reign as 'Daddy' will gain the respect of the inmates and sadistic 'screws' alike. One of the most controversial films ever made in the UK, and one which caused a huge furore when it was first screened on TV, Scum s...
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