Charging headfirst into controversy with no apologies and a bag full of wince-inducing inappropriate jokes, Marching Powder does exactly what’s on the tin – it knows its intended demographic inside out. Directed by Nick Love — the man behind The Football Factory — this new film drags viewers into the chaotic world of Jack Jones, played by Danny Dyer, a former football hooligan whose glory days are long behind him. After yet another brawl lands him in court, Jack is handed one final chance to sort himself out — but anyone familiar with Love’s work can probably guess that redemption won’t come easy.
Jack’s sentence involves keeping his nose clean – literally and figuratively – but between old mates urging him to neck whatever drugs are on offer and a general refusal to grow up, Jack finds it hard to stay on the straight and narrow. His chaotic antics put him at odds with his long-suffering wife Dani (Stephanie Leonidas), who’s starting to wonder if life with Jack is really worth the hassle — especially when a painfully right-on arts teacher – a man who might as well have “hipster bellend” eched on his forehead – starts showing interest in her.
While Dyer brings his usual swagger and world-weary charm to the role, it’s Leonidas who quietly steals the spotlight. Her deadpan delivery of barbed insults, including the gem that Jack would “rather give his cocaine to the homeless” than show up for couples therapy, is a comedic highlight. Whenever Jack and Dani are slinging creatively obscene insults at each other, the film is at its funniest.
But Marching Powder isn’t just rude — it’s deliberately provocative. Nick Love throws in offensive, but never racist or sexist gags at every opportunity. Some viewers will find this approach refreshing, others will find it exhausting. Either way, the hooligan culture depicted here feels less like a biting satire and more like a worn-out rerun of characters we’ve seen plenty of times before — the same blokes, the same banter, the same bag of gear.
If you’re hoping for a spiritual sequel to The Football Factory, you might come away disappointed. Marching Powder has moments of genuine laugh-out-loud humour, but it often mistakes shock value for sharpness, leaving it somewhere between a guilty pleasure and a tired relic from the early 2000s. I liked it more than I thought I would.
