The Firm (Blu-ray) BFI

Gary Oldman is Clive ‘Bex’ Bissell, an intelligent family man with a good job, who also happens to be the leader of the notorious East London hooligan firm, the Inner City Crew. Bex plans to unite rival gangs into a national firm to take to the European Championships, but that will mean defeating Oboe’s Birmingham crew and the South London Buccaneers led by arch rival Yeti (Phil Davis). As Bex’s craving for violence becomes an obsession, events spiral out of control.

Alan Clarke’s unflinching drama courted much controversy when it was first broadcast in a toned down version on the BBC. Now, it is rightly considered a masterpiece, due in no small part to the brilliance of Oldman’s central performance – one of the finest of his career.

Newly transferred in HD, The Firm is presented here in two versions: the never-before-seen Director’s Cut, which re-instates a number of bold sequences previously considered too controversial for audiences; and the original BBC TV broadcast version.