Cass (2008)

Way more than just a football thuggery story, as our protagonist has to weave his way from being an orphaned Black kid (Nonso Anozie) raised by White foster parents in a predominantly White London east end neighborhood to being a self-respected man with a job, family and peace of mind. Along this most circuitous route, he encounters racism by both Whites and Blacks: by Whites because of his color and by Blacks because of his cockneyed "White" sounding speech patterns and by his reluctance to "go Black" to his so-called African/Jamaican roots. He is quite content to merely be himself and is fully comfortable with his Caucasian foster parents who brought him up with love and attention. He cares far more about his family and his mates than for some artificial and ephemeral political/racial cause. The jail cell scene with the back and forth dialogue between Cass and his "Rasta-ish" cell-mate bears this point out.

But his issues with the aforementioned football thuggery with its concomitant need for constant revenge through violence is keeping him from the realization of his true inner self, the real man he wants to be. The thrust of this film deals with how, over long periods of time, he must manage to extricate those inner demons in order to achieve any sort of lasting peace. And a superlative job indeed is done to portray this metamorphosis by Jon Baird & co., especially the lead role by Nonso. No fancy existential/psychological drama in this hard-hitting, straight-forward piece: just a man in search of himself with the hopes of finding some semblance of a peaceful, fulfilling existence.

Fmovies: Recently I couldn't get into any performance of The Dark Knight, so myself and my mate looked for an alternative. I should gone home and watched Eastenders this boring pretentious mockney nonsense, barely kept me awake . The main character (the first black hooligan) was about is menacing as the Hofmeister Bear. Unlike the cruely underrated Rise Of The Footsoldier which was slated to pieces. This film was a winded pretentious biopic of somebody nobody cares about. The acting was dreadful, especially the person who plays Cass's wife,hearing her winy nicotine voice was the equalvent of hearing a blackboard being scratched!! Why was this given a 18 certificate ?

judging by the comments left by men wanting to see an accurately depicted film on footie thuggery this is not a decent hooligan flick.

I am not sure what the attraction is behind hooliganism, I mean don't get me wrong i profess to be no angel.

I am a 34yr old working class south londoner who has had (in my day of course) many a stupidly drunken night and day which have occasionally led to tear ups resulting in victory and defeat, but packs of tooled up geezer's week after week year after year to then turn around and claim to be some national violence hierarchy! nah mate i ain't 'avin it.

what was/is truly remarkable about this is 1 solitary black mans possibly god given path to stay and keep his head way above the water against any off the odds and become not only a player but ranked elitely among the top dogs if not the top.

I for most of my childhood grew not too far from Cass's home town and were subject to similar experience's but had the sanctity of a home to which I culturally belonged. coincidentally I have also known Nonso in my past and I am truly proud at his portrayal of the man. as for Elaine (Cass's wife) not knowing a damned thing about the man's better half I felt that Natalie Press was not wooden or poor but actually quite sweet and find that viewers and critics alike expect Hollywood stellar performances far too often from actors portraying sweet n simple everyday fault filled folk.

sadly (or maybe not so sadly) the budget was low so the film was kept gritty and simple as was working class Britain back then but the sentiment was high.

a simple but great "1 man against the world and winning" story.

Cass fmovies. I wouldn't usually bother leaving a comment, but I just finished watching Cass and was surprised to see people had slated the film here at IMDb.. perhaps leaving other folk interested in unique individuals worth reading about to overlook such a powerful story.

If you are looking for consistent violence in a movie, it's not the movie your looking for. This film, and the underline story, is one of someones rise from ultimately unfair odd's.. and onto the best at what was offered. This also offers a valuable insight into an otherwise mindless brute, and to see the notions for his behaviour..

Bottom line: Watch the movie if you detest racism.. don't bother if your going to overlook all that and have a whine at the end because you didn't see enough blood.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

A film highlighting the true story of Cass Pennant (Nonso Anozie) a baby born to a Jamaican mother who was raised by a white working class couple who's doorstep he landed on. The film charts his youth getting his first taste of football violence in it's heyday of the early 70s, through to a decade later when he was leading London's top firm The ICF (Inter City Firm) into battle, which ended up getting him a lengthy spell in jail. He came out and tried to turn his life around, getting into the nightclub doorman business, but his past caught up with him and after an attempt on his life, he turned his back on his old life for good, and is now respected as a renowned author.

After the true life story of Carlton Leach was documented in the woeful misfire Rise of the Foot Soldier, Cass arrives trying to do the same thing with (black) ICF leader Pennant. "The Football Factory meets This is England" a praise caption (for want of better phrasing) proclaimed when I first saw the poster for this. Okay, already I was thinking 80s Britain, Thatcher, hooliganism, a bit grim. I wasn't disappointed in this respect, but in others Cass did disappoint me quite badly.

For a film that's ended up on the big screen, the film looks remarkably cheap, like it's more suited as a TV film than here. Up until the end, for some reason director Jon S Baird has shot his film in a grainy, blurry style that you can't help but notice. Maybe this was to help give off a feel of how bleak and grim life in England during the 70s and 80s was, but it didn't come off as too subtle with me. The use of stock footage from old news reels showing the football violence also didn't help in this respect. But aside from this, the film goes to great pains to dramatize Cass's life story veering away from any exciting football action, but rather than involve us in the end the film has come off more as dull and boring unfortunately.

The film benefits from an undeniably fine lead performance from Anozie as the titular character, an articulate thug with a lot of pent up anger in him but who also has an intelligent side that comes to be his guiding light. He does try and justify his actions at points by blaming them on Thatcher, as when talking about his clashes with police at games, saying 'they were her army versus ours' without realizing no matter heavy handed they might have been, they were trying to stop violence rather than cause it. Nathalie Press as the girl who becomes his wife tries hard but her voice is rather annoying and grating and this put me off a bit. Leo Gregory, who was also in Green Street, is good in a supporting role as Cass's mate. Tamer Hassan does his usual glaring, quietly menacing hardman act and Dennis Pennis himself Paul Kaye also does well as the man behind Cass's shooting. Performances wise, there's really nothing wrong with the film, it's in other areas it lets itself down.

The distributors picked a stupid time to release it, as it really didn't stand a chance at this time of year, up against bigger films like The Dark Knight, the new X-Files film and The Love Guru. I remember seeing a little feature on it on the news, which now makes me think it was just desperate for any publicity it could get. It had about one showing time when I went to see it, but the theatre was packed and it seems to have had a stay of execution for this week too,

With The Football Factory still reverberating in the memory, it's difficult to get as excited about a film like Cass as one would like; a piece living in the still-recent shadow of such a film whilst calling on direct influence from the likes of 2005's Green Street as well as bits and pieces of an older crime film, albeit disconnected from hooliganism, in the form of De Palma's Carlito's Way. Indeed, Cass' director is a certain Jon Baird; a man who worked on Green Street as an associate producer - his film here formulating into a similar tale of a "white crow" and their consequent exposure to a world around them they are inherently alien to. This, before undergoing a gradual inception into it. It all smells suspiciously of said example's Elijah Wood character, an American getting lost amidst the sociological norms of a hooligan-dominated zone and having to undergo this process of initiation so as to get by. A similar framework of someone as much-an outcast to their surroundings getting involved, before realising the nature of one's ways and one's life, is told here, only over the space of about thirty years and not as engagingly.

The film follows that of true-to-life criminal-come-hooligan turned author Cass Pennant; a man whose tale here is as true as they tell us it is, and yet doesn't carry that naturalistic sense that it is someone's life actually progressing from one point to another. Told in glaringly episodic fashion, a fresh popular song peppering the soundtrack every time the era jumps forward, Nonso Anozie plays the titular lead: a man of Jamaican descent adopted at a young age by a white London couple in the 1960s, and brought up as their own in decent, friendly home-set surroundings. As a youngster, he is marginalised and ridiculed for his colour; a safe haven arriving in the form of a local public house practically run by the fans of West Ham United, whom welcome him in if it means he's a fan of the team and help him out when he runs into those racists outside of hours. This sense of unity is epitomised by the singing in unison those within carry out; football shirts and scarves in the club's colours reiterating this sense of being at one. In an attempt to instill an early sense of where we're at, we observe The Football Factory's own Tamer Hassan doing what the character of Billy Bright did in Nick Love's said 2004 film, when pub-set shenanigans give way to the intimidating of a young kid who thinks he can intermingle with those above his weight.

Cass is apprehensive of going to football to begin with; not even his father's reiteration that the stars of the day and certain World Cup winners will be there appears to convince him, but he rides it out and then discovers a taste for what lurks beneath the following of a football team. Thus that of what we see of Cass' life is launched, his descent through hooliganism and organised violence; a world in which the attraction of a footballing 'firm' facing off against another is more appealing than the match itself. West Ham's biggest rivals in this regard are Leeds United, not out of geography nor the fact they are both of an immensely skilled nature alá the Real Madrid-Barcelona ties, but because these two fight the hardest.

What transpires are several 'bits' and pieces of Pennant's life: his first feel of football violence; his going to prison; his meeting of a girl; his getting wind of a business venture, none of it much more than slightly interes