Back in the day, The Guvnors were one of the most feared and powerful firms around.  Based in London, this group of football hooligans were famous for the brutality of their fights.  More than 20 years later, they’ve all retired from hooliganism and, more or less, gone on to live normal lives.  (One of them is a cop!)  Their former leader, Mitch (Doug Allen), preaches non-violence and worries about his son copying his past mistakes.  When he runs into the former members of a rival firm at a soccer game, he makes a point of shaking hands with them.  The past is over.

When young drug dealer Adam (Harley Sule) takes over a London manor estate, he is eager to fight the former members of the Guvnors so that he can establish that he and his gang are now in charge of the neighborhood.  Mitch tries to ignore him until a former Guvnor, Mickey (David Essex), is murdered in his home.  Mitch gets the old firm back together again for one last brawl.

Also know as Hoodies vs Hoodlums, The Guvnors is gritty but contrived, with action that plays out at a slow pace while managing to hit just about urban gang movie cliche imaginable.  There was a lot of potential to the idea of Mitch getting the old gang back together again but it doesn’t happen until nearly an hour into this 95-minute movie so, with the exception of a sepia-toned flashback, we don’t really get much of an idea of who these people were in the past.  Doug Allen project quite authority as Mitch but rapper Harley Sule (credited here as Harley Sylvester) is unimpressive in the role of Adam.  He doesn’t come across as being a dynamic enough leader to take over a manor estate, let alone defeat a group of middle-aged football hooligans.

Despite a premise with a lot of kick, The Guvnors misses the goal.