Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Furioza’ on Netflix, Where Violence And Fractured Loyalties Swirl Around A Gang Of Polish Soccer Hooligans 

Furioza (Netflix), from director Cyprian T. Olencki and 365 Days screenwriter Tomasz Klimala, spins a brutal tale of soccer hooliganism taken to extremes, the deathly grip of the European drug trade, and the shifting opportunism of the authorities tasked with keeping the peace. You better crack your knuckles before cueing this one up.

FURIOZA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: There’s a turf war afoot in the Baltic port city of Gdynia, Poland. Furioza is just that, a proud group of bruising soccer hooligans chiefed by a noble warrior type named Kaszub (Wojciech Zielinski). Furioza’s legit business is nightclub security, but their main business is knocking heads with their perpetual rivals, a gang of drugrunning “hools” whose captain, Antman (Szymon Bobrowski), reports to area kingpin Polanski (Janusz Chabior). The police are aware of the ongoing gang war and hooligan violence, but that’s low level stuff in comparison to bringing down Polanski, and a jaded police lieutenant named Bauer (Lukasz Simlat) sees an opening that could score a win for the law, and he pressures police detective Ewa Drzewiecka (Weronika Książkiewicz) to exploit her personal connection to Furioza.

Drzewiecka, also known as “Dzika” (that’s Polish for “Wild”; Netflix translates her nickname as “Savage”) came up as a member of Furioza, alongside her younger brother Daro, boyfriend Dawid (Mateusz Banasiuk), and best friend Golden (Mateusz Damięcki). But when Daro was killed in a gang fight, each of them were radicalized in different ways. Dzika joined the force, bent on avenging the empty violence of hooliganism. Dawid, banished from Furioza and labeled a coward, became a doctor as a means of atonement. And Golden, humiliated in the botched tunnel battle, shaved his skull, pledged allegiance to Kaszub and the club, and swore no one would ever get the drop on him again. Dawid agrees to act as a police informant and re-enters his life as a hool, but he’ll have to earn back Golden’s trust.

In this world, gripes have traditionally been settled the old fashioned way. Furioza confronts the Antmen in a many man melee set in a forest, where bare fists and booted kicks land with sickening, bone-crunching satisfaction. The fight is sanctioned, though – many men wear mouthguards – and when it’s all over, each side departs to lick its wounds, animus reverting to wary truce. Trouble is, when drug money’s involved, the fight is never going to stay traditional. As Dawid is drawn deeper into Furioza, and Dzika worries for his safety, Golden escalates the feud with Antman over turf controlled and lucrative drug routes from the port. Guns come out. People are targeted. The cops are on the prowl. And loyalties are tested, twisted, and shot full of holes as outright banditry and the lust for money overtakes the battered ideals that Kaszub so long upheld.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? There’s some interesting crossover in the cast between Furioza and another Polish film about bruising and loyalty, 2021’s Bartkowiak (Netflix). There, Szymon Bobrowski traded in Antman’s arachnoid head tattoos and gangster threads for the sweatshirts and rangy right hook of the titular MMA fighter’s washed-up coach Pawel. And Janusz Chabior, who’s so great in Furioza as the menacing, grandfatherly crime lord Polanski, nearly stole the show in Bartkowiak as a psychopathic underworld figure. And since Furioza has also played as a limited series in European markets, it’s worth noting the universe of crime and gangsterism spawned by the 2015 film Suburra, embodied in Netflix’s garish and violent crime drama Suburra: Blood on Rome.

Performance Worth Watching: Mateusz Damięcki is a complete titan in Furioza as Golden, the hool lieutenant whose intensity is defined in his raw-boned, veiny musculature rippling beneath tats that slither up his shoulders and onto his neck, and eyeballs that seem to become more crazed and convex with each ratchet of perceived wrong or underworld double-cross.

Memorable Dialogue: Kaszub is addressing his troops in the forest clearing as they prepare to face Antman’s crew. There’s a code he believes must be upheld, so much that he forbids Golden to hand out bats and clubs. “We fight honorably! We didn’t work for our respect for so long to fuck it up now. We are the ones making history!”

Sex and Skin: A brief love scene or two, and random toplessness from Furioza supporters and sex workers.

Our Take: “I have a family – a kid – and a machete in my car,” Kaszub tells Dawid. “You don’t want this life.” He’s proud of his brother, who left hooliganism behind for a career in medicine, because Kas knows better than anyone how it’s a dead end, even as he understands how much it runs his life. Furioza is adept at establishing these dichotomies in miniature between pairs of its characters – Dzika and Dawid rekindling their romance despite the surging violence, or Golden’s struggle between outward loyalty and his craven, selfish inner life – and those dramas define its intensity, which stays at a steady boil for a full two hours. How intense? Kaszub wasn’t kidding about that machete. The blade does its binary work throughout Furioza with brutal efficiency, but it’s joined by Antman’s unlikely personal weapon of choice in a gilded pitchfork, a few beatdowns via baseball bat, and of course, that utterly visceral forest floor fight sequence, where fifty guys in themed hooligan sweatshirts clash in a knuckle-splitting, tooth-shattering brawl that offers no quarter until the victors are counted among whoever is left standing. “Once a hooligan, always a hooligan” is a repeated mantra in Furioza. Another Furiosa, that imperator war captain from another warlike cinematic society, would certainly approve.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Furioza is indeed that, a grim tale of tested loyalties and ingrained cycles of violence that carries with it a streak of vendetta and raw street justice.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges