Given the plethora of movies dedicated to the football hooligan-cum-gangster that the British film industry has churned out in the last few years, the decade will undoubtedly go down in cult movie circles as that which gave us the rise of the "hooligang" genre. Just when you thought it was safe to return to the terraces along comes CASS, to deliver yet another autobiographical insight into the life of an infamous gang member of West Ham United’s "legendary" 80s ’Inter City Firm’.

Like it’s predecessors, Alan Clarke’s THE FIRM (1988), Lexi Alexander’s GREEN STREET (2005), and Julian Gilbey’s RISE OF THE FOOTSOLDIER (2007), CASS presents its characters all warts with no make-up, in a brutally honest reconstruction of street life from the "hard man" perspective.

Vilified by the press, with the Telegraph’s derision particularly evident "...ignored by swathes of the public and released with minimum fuss, movies about hooligans are the equivalent of social outcasts"; this sub-genre of extreme cinema is unfairly marginalized despite its obvious appeal to the public. Back in August, CASS opened on 50 UK cinema screens, which is pretty good for a low budget movie, and it’s distributor Optimum Releasing clearly knows its market having made a nice profit last year with RISE OF THE FOOTSOLDIER.

CASS, based on the best selling book by author Cass Pennant and played by Nonso Anozie, charts the life of an orphaned Jamaican brought up by kindly white foster parents, Doll (Linda Bassett) and Cecil Chambers (Peter Wright) in Doncaster despite the ignorant racism inherent in society around them: "they’re still cute at that age before they get the curly hair and big lips” remarks one woman to Doll Pennant whilst pushing baby Cass in his pram.

Ostracised at school due to his skin colour and real name of Carol, our titular hero changes his name to Cass after Cassius Clay and enters the world of ’The Casuals’, a tribe of West Ham followers where his size and prowess as a streetfighter soon bring him to the attention of the notorious Inter City Firm, so-named because of the gang’s penchant for using Intercity Trains for travel to away games.

Climbing through the gang ranks, and several street fights later Cass finds himself arrested and sentenced to three years in prison, the first long term prison sentence served for football related violence under Margaret Thatcher’s government in the Conservative’s drive to rid the country of the "English disease". Whilst in Wormwood Scrubs Cass sets about writing his memoirs and upon release meets Elaine (Natalie Press) whose love and patience help Cass achieve a sense of belonging outside of ICF associates.Nevertheless, violence is never far off, and when Cass takes up the offer of job as a club doorman, he finds himself drawn back into a world of violent rivalries from which death might prove the only escape.

Like Shane Meadows’ THIS IS ENGLAND (2006) Thatcher’s politics are attacked with a series of verbal on-screen statements from its characters. But sadly, director Jon S. Baird lacks the subtle filmmaking skills that make the former movie so memorable. Any poignancy is lost in an early scene in which we witness young Cass (Verelle Roberts) scrubbing his arms with soap following a racist encounter accompanied by a facile voiceover "I never did get any whiter". And these narrative voiceovers continue to grate with poorly conceived didacticisms that attempt to convince its audience that hooliganism was merely an outlet for the working classes to take their minds off unemployment and in which noone really gets hurt, and then contradicts itself by saying that office boys also had a right to vent their anger at the system and shows them fighting too. Then the policeforce are described as "uniformed hooligans" when tackling the miners, and footage of a Margaret Thatcher is intercut with a scene of an attack on a Northern working man’s club with its dogmatic assertion that you were either with the government or the hooligans. Even more redundant are the lazy voiceovers accompanying everyday scenes. "I walked into a pub and ordered a pint" (we watch Cass walk into a pub and buys a pint of beer), "I sat down, opened a newspaper and started to read" (we watch Cass sit down, open a newspaper and start to read...)

Another bad point is the acting, not having met Cass Pennant, I can’t vouch for the authenticity of the performance of the lead, but Nonso Anozie just doesn’t come across as scary, which is at odds from the impression garnered from reading the man’s autobiography (which incidentally, is quite a rivetting read). Pennant has admitted that old gang members and acquanitances were drafted in for minor roles, look out too for cameos from former boxer Frank Bruno, Billy Gardener, and Stinky Turner from the Oi band Cockney Rejects. So perhaps no surprise that the acting seems stilted at times. Not that the film is all bad, the fight scenes are well-choreographed, and the film does move along fast to prevent viewers considering the fast forward at times when its bad points rise to the fore.

Football fans interested in yet another glorifcation of gang violence ought to enjoy CASS - and I guess, given the genre’s limitations, there’s not a lot more you can expect. So provided you’re armed with a six pack (of beers) and prepared to leave half your brain on the doorstep, CASS will provide a passable 108 minutes until the next matchday.

Carl T. Ford