The Firm Reviews

No other director has captured male aggression on film with the keen eye of Alan Clarke. Clarke's specialties are anger and violence, and he captures them with a brutal precision that belies the inherent messiness of the action. It's all shot and edited so effectively that the audience can nearly feel each blow. With his scathing drama, The Firm, he takes on football hooliganism and the mercenary ideals of Thatcher's England. Bex, played with virtuosic blend of ferocity and charm by Gary Oldman, is not the stereotypical skinhead thug, but, essentially, a yuppie. Clarke cannily introduces Bex as a family man who clearly loves his wife, Sue (Lesley Manville), and their young son. Initially, it seems that Bex is far more rational than his mates, as he resists their exhortations to seek immediate violent retribution when his car is vandalized. Clarke and Oldman, working from a script by Al Ashton (EastEnders), gradually reveal the depths of Bex's depravity. In the world of The Firm, football and provincialism are merely excuses for preternaturally angry men to unleash terrorism upon each other. With his marriage on the verge of collapse, Bex is unable to relinquish his position as "top boy" of his crew. "I need the buzz," he moans, pleading with Sue to understand his unquenchable appetite for destruction. Clarke, who was actually a football fan, and Ashton reveal an ugly side of spectatorship, as certain fans see their own noxious behavior as more important than the sport they claim to love. While its critique of the Thatcher era is a bit oblique, the film is trenchant in its treatment of masculine identity tied to aggression. The level of barbarity the film reaches may strain credulity a bit, but Clarke pulls it together with a bitterly ironic, "triumphant" ending.