The evolving state of Britain’s soccer hooligans is explored, one bloody beating or brutal brawl at a time, in the imported Brit drama, “Green Street Hooligans: Underground.”
It’s the third in a series of films about the two-fisted fans of West Ham United Football Club — their lives, their fights, their loves. Hey, if your favorite sports franchise was nicknamed “The Hawthorns,” you’d probably fight, too.
In America, men may gather, paint their faces and tailgate themselves into a stupor before football games where they root, root root and bet bet bet on the home team. In Britain, they gather in ancient pubs, sing fight songs and drinking songs and stagger to games where the singing continues. And every so often, afterwards, they get into a scuffle over whose side is best. Head-butting is often involved.
They call themselves “The Green Street Elite,” but the coppers have cracked down so much on hooliganism that the soccer fan street brawls that made the evening news are mostly a thing of the past. “Underground” is where that fighting has drifted. The premise of this third film in the “Green Street” saga is the discovery that the brawls have been formalized, taken into back alleys where five-on-five fights take place and the last five standing win and move on in “the standings.”
That’s what Danny (Scott Adkins) discovers when he tries to learn how his younger brother, Joey (Billy Cook) was killed. Danny is a brawler who got out, a mixed martial artist who trains other fighters in a gym in a nicer part of town. But back in the day, Danny was “The Guvner,” the punishing puncher who led the G.S.E. into action. Win or lose on the pitch, the lads always had an eye for a punch-out with Tottenham or Arsenal backers.
Realizing his old mate, the cop (Joey Ansah) will never get to the bottom of Joey’s murder, Danny picks up a few pints at The Abbey Inn, G.S.E.’s watering hole. And The Guvner’s back in the thick of it, sniffing around for clues as to who knows what, and what they’re not telling him or the cops.
The slang in gritty Brit films is always fun — “You’re bang out of order, mate. “Jog on” (get lost). Every line punctuated with “Oy!”
Adkins, an accomplished screen pugilist, is sort of a Jason Statham — with hair. Good looking enough to merit the attentions of the impossibly pretty and out-of-place barmaid (Kacey Barnfield), tough enough to mix it up with the toughest.
The British title of this was “Green Street 3: Never Back Down,” which tells you how worn this modern spin on the fight picture is. Hollywood got to this sort of barefisted, off-the-books brawling years ago, and often.
The milieu is barely gritty enough to get by, so director James Nunn stages the fights with split screens (three images) and lots of blood-spurting slo-mo. Nothing original there, either.
And however well executed this formula fight picture might be, Americans may find the idea of grown men — well-past their testosteroned teens — beating the daylights out of each other for wearing the wrong scarf to a soccer match a tad pathetic.

MPAA Rating: R for brutal street fights, language throughout and a scene of sexuality/nudity
Cast: Scott Adkins, Kacey Barnfield, Joey Ansah, Jack Doolan, Billy Cook
Credits: Directed by James Nunn, written by Ronnie Thompson. A Wrekin Hill/Lionsgate release.
Running time: 1:33