1 out of 5

Directed by: James Nunn

Scott Adkins is the king of starring in “unlikely franchises” flicks.  Green Street?  The Elijah Wood-starring movie about JOURNOS gettin’ involved in Soccer hooliganism?  Sure, why not.  And, like Undefeated – another eventual-Adkins-starring-unlikely-franchise – it gets roundabout turned into a fightin’ flick (which, fine, Undefeated was, but with a Walter Hill thinkin’ man bent.).

Here, Scotty plays the brother of young Joey, whose fightin’ potential is cut short in an especially brutal post-Soccer bout of hooliganism when he gets a’one too many kicks to the ribs and / or face and dies.  We’re introduced to Danny – Adkins – when some fellas try to start something in the bar or fight club or something he presumably owns, and then he gets the call about Joey and must return home to reinsert himself into The Green Street Elite – the soccer club which is the common thread in these flicks – to discover Joey’s killer.

Look: none of us are here for plots in these DTV affairs, but GSH: Underground (or Green Street 3, or Green Street 3: Never Back Down) makes the mistake of being fairly boring.  Director James Nunn and his editor (Tommy Boulding) and DP (Jonathan Iles) do the common low-budget digital thing of keeping the field of view narrow, over-exposing the base colors (greens and greys), and using a lot of runtime padding slo-mo and whatnot, and it gets the job done, but the satisfaction level on these soccer club brawls is very, very low.  As usual, Scott puts in the effort, but we’re lacking even that one general WOW moment Adkins normally inserts into things.  Instead we get several training montages, several appreciably resource-managed shots of group scuffles, and then the briefest moments of Scott doing a bare-knuckle variation on his martial arts approach.  Even the “ultimate showdown” with Joey’s killer is weaksauce.

I was hanging on with a two-star for just keeping things moving and professional, but the movie pulls out a dunderheaded set of “twists” at the end that just sprinkle trash sauce atop the thing, and I was then ready to stop watching.  I continued for you, mine audience.  Just for you.