When I reviewed Chata Pictures’ first production, The Rise and Fall of a White Collar Hooligan, a few months ago, I explained at length my personal antipathy films about football thugs and gangster geezers – something that certainly stopped me from enjoying that movie even if, in retrospect, it was a better example of the genre.

G.B.H. – which began life as Riot but has had a title change to avoid suggestions of cashing in on the anniversary of the London (and wider UK) events of a year ago – might look like it’s going to be more of the same at first glance. But Simon Phillips’ film turns out to be a different beast entirely, despite sharing a lot of the same personnel both in front of and behind the camera. While …Hooligan was blokeish and too apologetic for the antics of its ultimately unsavoury characters, G.B.H. is more of a nihilistic descent into the heart of darkness, both for its lead character and for London as a whole.

Nick Nevern plays copper Damien, who is seemingly torn between trying to do the right thing in his job and still being part of the laddish, football hooligan culture that he has grown up in. All too willing to turn a blind eye to the criminal, thuggish behaviour of his mates – who expect him to help them out when their activities finally get them arrested – he’s also being dragged down by the daily grind of his work life, which seems to involve a continual round of domestic abuse, bullying, sexual assault and robbery, often throwing him into contact with the most appalling dregs of humanity you’ll ever see gathered together in a single film. The conflict of his dual lives leads to misguided attempts to do the right thing (which lead to far worse consequences), bouts of police brutality and a slow realisation that he needs to leave his past behind. A growing relationship with a new female officer seems to be the light at the end of the tunnel, but as London erupts in riots, a chain of events take place that will ultimately damn him forever.

The London riots – shown here in a mostly seamless mix of news footage and recreations – are almost incidental to the plot, the final act of vengeance being something that could’ve easily been set in motion without them. But they do offer a final moment of insanity and pointless violence that nicely encapsulates the feel of the film, where the city feels like one of the circles of Hell – a more authentic representation than the happy, shiny place hyped during the Olympics, I’d suggest.

This is, certainly, one of the grimmest films I’ve seen in some time, with an extraordinary sense of despair about the whole thing. If you are looking for a sense of hope that people can escape their desperate lives, then this isn’t the film for you, as Damien is dragged down by his own ambivalence and denial (he attempts to justify football thuggery as a bit of laugh with the lads, failing to see the consequences and the connection to bullying and brutalisation until it is too late) and he seems set on a path of self-destruction, from allowing himself to be caught cheating on his girlfriend to his explosive moments of taking the law into his own hands. Nevern is a hard sell as a copper at first – too many roles on the other side of the law see to that – but I suspect his character is more authentic than most police officers we see on TV, and he does a convincing job as the conflicted central character.

Simon Phillips handles the film well. There’s no sugarcoating, no glamourising of the violence, which is shown is raw and sometimes genuinely distressing detail. The relentless nihilism of this film and the continual brutalism – from the violence to the people to the relentless swearing – is not going to endear it to everyone. This is a film that portrays violence against kids and sexual assault of women in pretty brutal (though certainly not gratuitous) detail, and viewers might need to be aware of that. It also offers no easy answers, and in fact suggests that the brutalisation of society is inescapable. Early on, we see a young boy, beaten by his father, telling the cops that he’s “not a prole and won’t grow up to be a prole”. Later we see him, in the middle of the crowd of thugs, goading the riot cops, suggesting that that is exactly what he is destined to be - a kid with No Future. Such moments could feel a little too blatant, too obvious – it’s to Philiips’ credit that he can make them effective. There are a couple of weak performances and some moments of clunky dialogue, but as a whole this is a well crafted, uncompromising and powerful slice of film making - even if it is likely to make you feel quite depressed about the state of humanity after watching it.

DAVID FLINT