daniel-mannouch Since i have slagged off Press on Features considerably in my previous reviews, i feel i should make it clear for clarity's sake that not all of their output has been drab and vanilla waste as i've hinted at previously. Look no further than at what i guess what you could call their most iconic release, a Poundland staple, Rise and Fall of a White Collar Hooligan. Released at a time when both the gangland and Hooligan genres were in decline, this film combined the two, cleverly, admittedly, as a way to pick up the scraps of niche interest left over from the early 2000's. The result was an exploitation (and not the last one) of a true life account of a credit card fraudster with an "oh so indeed" frustratingly misleading title slapped on and the new wave of low budget Brit crime cinema crashed into our supermarkets. The Hooligangster film had arrived and has not left since. So, enough history, how's the film itself? Not bad. The quintessential low budget DV-era crime film. It has a clear idea of what it is and rarely bandies about with bringing the goods, all budgetary restrictions considered. Nick Nevern serves well as the small fish, big pond hood and is additionally served well by a good supporting turn by Simon Phillips and a well-balanced script that never struggles for politicisation and instead settles with sympathy for our protagonists.The clue is in the title. They are just atypical white collar guys, like the intended audience, who happen to embark on this underworld odyssey. There is really not a bad turn in this by anyone in this really. Unadventurous or safe yes, but never disastrous or insipid. It's a story that keeps your interest despite lacking the bombast of the more notable entries it apes consistently throughout the running time. Is it the best of it's kind? Maybe. Taking into consideration that it spawned a trilogy of steady quality, it's hard to argue anything of it's kind matches it in success. But with the increasingly ambitious (and enjoyable) works of the likes of Nicholas Winter and Terry Lee Coker upcoming, it might be only a matter of time before a new style establishes itself and closes over this fine ride of austerity era gangster fantasy.

The Couchpotatoes "The rise and fall of a white collar hooligan". When you read a title like that, and with a movie poster of a hooligan holding a baseball bat then you obviously think you are going to watch a hooligan movie. So I was surprised it was not that at all. The only thing that can be matched to hooliganism in this story is that two of the main characters know each other from football. You only see like one or two fights, even if those scenes I would not call them hooligan fights. The movie is just a crime story about credit card fraud and gangster stuff in London. The story is actually not that bad, and the actors neither, it's just that I was expecting something else. All in all it's worth a watch but just don't expect hooligan stuff.

Richard Lewis (zombie-28) I couldn't resist this as I watch most of the 'geezer' movies that come out. Firstly the title is very confusing. The main character isn't white collar, and his hooligan activities are limited to a short montage in the opening 5 minutes. What it's really about is an unemployed thug joining a credit card cloning racket and rising through the ranks before the inevitable crash. The story more or less follows the trajectory of 'Goodfellas' but obviously no where near as slick of well written. Some of the dialogue is straight out of the 'Football Factory' book and gets far to close to the embarrassment of Danny Dyer's forced tones. The music is also woeful and inappropriate. That said, the credit card scam sections are quite entertaining in a limited beer & curry night kind of way. In closing, I don't know what you would expect from a film entitled 'Fall and Rise of a White Collar Hooligan' but what you get is a flawed low budget crime drama with some limited interesting parts. 5/10

Kasper Lewis Let's be honest here, we churn out quite a few gangster/crime movies over here in Britain and many of these are utter tosh... But please keep an open mind because The rise and Fall of a White Collar Hooligan is fresh, fast paced, funny, violent exciting AND it's a true story.. So what more could you want?!OK a few more sex scenes would have been a bonus but that's a minor gripe and an irrelevant one really as this film focuses on the crime being put into operation by gangsters. This theme is both original and cleverly handled. I won't give details about what it is you'll have to watch it to find out! A special mention to Nick Nevern and Simon Phillips who have great on screen chemistry in a bromancey sorta way. Billy Murray does what he does best and is an intimidating and necessary evil. All in all it's money very well spent. When you consider the amount of rubbish on the T.V. this film is more than worth investing in you'll watch it again and again - it's a film where there are certain classic lines that you'll be repeating to your mates. Do yourself a favour and get on it! It's an insight to a fascinating world that is going on around us all...