We loved this, and I really didn't expect to. A group of friends wanted to see this as a late night end to a party, and it didn't sound my cup of tea at all. I don't like football, I don't like violence, and I don't like boy films, but in the end it was me telling everyone else to shush. The boys liked all the laddy stuff of course, and I must admit it was energetic and exciting in those areas, depending on the adrenalin of the actors rather than cgi wham bam stuff, but what really got to me was the journey of the central character, Mo, who starts out in one place and ends up in another, but you never really know where he really stands, who he really is, maybe because he doesn't know himself. That kind of mystery and confusion about a character is just what gets me in a film. In a strange way it reminded me of William Friedkin's weird thriller Cruising. In the same way as that film, you finish at the end thinking and arguing about what you've just seen, about what the reality of it is. By the end I had quite forgotten this was a film about football violence, it seemed to be about so much more. I'll have to watch the original ID now too, there were lots of discussions by the boys comparing the two films, some liked the first one more. But in the early hours of the morning we were all really debating the film, and how many times can you say that. Highly recommended!
Review of ID2: Shadwell Army
