Under the direction of Nick Love who directed other football hooligan themed movies in the past, has took it upon himself to remake one of the more better made films on this subject matter based off of Alan Clarke's 1988 TV movie. Love's version of "The Firm" sadly doesn't live up to the expectations of Clarke's film no matter how much of the effort he puts into it. Clarke's version had a feeling of authenticity thanks to a strong cast including a very edgy performance from Gary Oldman, Unfortunately, the remake has a very non-existent direction and just lazily pads on the typical movie tropes that are featured here in movies of this calibre. Love doesn't give us a chance to get the audience invested into the characters and therefore don't have anything to genuinely care for them because it's not in his best interests. In the end the film only has the characters doing very little except looking intimidating and macho. According to the discs, it is said that Love has the greatest of admiration for Clarke and the original film in general, but felt that the fight scenes were way too frequent and extreme it had very little in terms of a plot. What Love does differently is he makes the street brawls feels more choreographed which takes away from the realism from Clarke's movie and it results in being unnecessarily neatly presented and lacks the authentically layered film that was featured in Clarke's original film.
It would take a long time to dissect the shortcomings that the 2009 version of "The Firm", but the main faults about Love's movie stems from the sensibility that is given to us over the more awkwardly approached scenes featured here. The commentary is the principal red herring as to why this remake sufferes the way it does. Love and his crew come off as a very smarmy and condescending bunch. They seem to take great pride in delivering humour which is not entirely a bad thing, but the jokes seem way too frequent for a film that really isn't a comedy. In addition to that the comedy featured here can be quite distracting and lacks in the appeal from the original. The absence of self-awareness is very obvious not to mention the decisions to accept other addition in this remake are highly questionable.
The real downfall in Nick Love's adaptation is that the character of Bex (Paul Anderson) is not the primary character unlike in the original Alan Clarke film. Instead Love taps his interest on a young novice hooligan named Dom (Calum McNab) and he shifts more of the story on his delinquent past making his film project on a more personal basis. That said, we can clearly see why Love chose to direct this movie, not to recreate every scene from Clarke's movie, but to reflect the memories of his troubled past in hope it will attract the movie audience. The result was a complete failure.
Overall, the film was a failure on a myriad of reasons, the commentary on Blu-ray is quite provocative with interesting interview segments with Nick Love and a few of the extras were quite fascinating. Also for fans who grew up in the 1980's there is a lot of pop culture for those who want to go on a nostalgia trip to check out the fashion, the style and of course the soundtrack. So though I'll give credit for Love who knew his selected audience will likely be, he just didn't reach the same grip that Clarke did in his original 1988 television.
It would take a long time to dissect the shortcomings that the 2009 version of "The Firm", but the main faults about Love's movie stems from the sensibility that is given to us over the more awkwardly approached scenes featured here. The commentary is the principal red herring as to why this remake sufferes the way it does. Love and his crew come off as a very smarmy and condescending bunch. They seem to take great pride in delivering humour which is not entirely a bad thing, but the jokes seem way too frequent for a film that really isn't a comedy. In addition to that the comedy featured here can be quite distracting and lacks in the appeal from the original. The absence of self-awareness is very obvious not to mention the decisions to accept other addition in this remake are highly questionable.
The real downfall in Nick Love's adaptation is that the character of Bex (Paul Anderson) is not the primary character unlike in the original Alan Clarke film. Instead Love taps his interest on a young novice hooligan named Dom (Calum McNab) and he shifts more of the story on his delinquent past making his film project on a more personal basis. That said, we can clearly see why Love chose to direct this movie, not to recreate every scene from Clarke's movie, but to reflect the memories of his troubled past in hope it will attract the movie audience. The result was a complete failure.
Overall, the film was a failure on a myriad of reasons, the commentary on Blu-ray is quite provocative with interesting interview segments with Nick Love and a few of the extras were quite fascinating. Also for fans who grew up in the 1980's there is a lot of pop culture for those who want to go on a nostalgia trip to check out the fashion, the style and of course the soundtrack. So though I'll give credit for Love who knew his selected audience will likely be, he just didn't reach the same grip that Clarke did in his original 1988 television.