Awaydays (18)

I'M starting a firm, readers. So please join me and we'll don our Stone Island jackets, Lois jeans and Adidas Forest Hills-and beat up anyone who even threatens to make another football hooligan film.

I'm bloody sick of them.

Cass was OK. Green Street, Rise of the Footsoldier, The Football Factory and ID were all dross. And this one, based on a book that's apparently quite decent, brings nothing new to the table whatsoever.

On the plus side, there's a good Joy Division song on the soundtrack.

As for the negatives, take all the late-70s miserablism you can stomach, mix with the usual blend of bleakness and punching, then serve lukewarm on a limp bed of can't-be-bothered.

Nicky Bell is Paul Carty, a 19-year-old from the right side of the tracks in Liverpool, who gets mixed up in a local firm called The Pack, thanks to his friendship with bad lad Elvis (Liam Boyle).

When they're not beating up rival gangs with ringleader John Godden (Stephen Graham), they hang around in Elvis's digs, where he has a collection of rare vinyl, pretentious books, and a noose "to remind us of our mortality" (shame he's not got a sewing needle handy, to remind him he's an annoying little pr**k).

The film focuses on Carty and Elvis's odd relationship but never sketches the characters strongly enough to make us care.

Instead, it's just two gloomy thugs lurching from one punch-up to the next, with the occasional no-brainer moral dilemma chucked in. Result is, even at just 105 minutes, it feels overlong and about as purposeless as Susan Boyle going on the Pill.

OUT FRIDAY

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