Untold UK: Vinnie Jones review – the hard man goes soft-focus
Netflix’s Untold UK: Vinnie Jones covers the Crazy Gang enforcer’s rise, fall and FA Cup glory in 77 brisk minutes. It’s a nostalgic watch for anyone who remembers him in his pomp.
Reviewed, edited and approved by Editor-in-chief Daniel Sköld · Updated 25 October 2026
Contents
There are two kinds of British men over 45. Some saw the photograph of Vinnie Jones grabbing Paul Gascoigne where it hurts and winced. Others saw it and quietly thought it summed up English football in the late 80s. Either way, you remember it, and that is exactly the kind of memory Netflix is counting on.
Untold UK: Vinnie Jones is a 77-minute documentary about the lad from the building sites who became football’s most notorious hard man, won the FA Cup, and then, somehow, became a Hollywood heavy. It’s a ridiculous story. The real question is whether the film is willing to ask any hard questions back.
Premiere2026-05-26
GenreHistory, Documentary
CastVinnie Jones, John Fashanu, Dave Bassett, Bobby Gould
Directed byDavid Tryhorn, Ben Nicholas
Running time77 min
Watch onNetflix
65%
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From hod carrier to Wembley hero
Netflix describes the film as the story of Jones’s rise, fall and comeback, ‘against odds – and red cards’. That pretty much covers it. The core is the Wimbledon years, when the Crazy Gang bullied their way out of the lower leagues and into the old First Division, made dressing-room pranks into a management style and then, in 1988, beat Liverpool in the FA Cup final. If you’re old enough, you’ll remember where you were. If you were a Liverpool fan, you’ve probably spent 38 years trying to forget.
Jones’s career after that hardly got calmer. There was a spell at Sheffield United, international caps for Wales, a steady supply of bookings and a reputation that walked onto the pitch about ten minutes before he did. The film keeps to that arc, and I won’t go into how it treats the lower points beyond saying that ‘fall’ is in the synopsis for a reason.
The Crazy Gang reconvenes
The interviewees read like a Wimbledon reunion that somebody invited Piers Morgan to. John Fashanu, Jones’s partner in mayhem, is there, along with the managers Dave Bassett and Bobby Gould, and Sam Hammam, the owner who ran Plough Lane like a cross between a family business and a hostage situation. Morgan is presumably there to give the tabloid view of a man the tabloids loved to hate, and then simply loved.
It’s directed by David Tryhorn and Ben Nicholas, and it sits under the Untold banner, Netflix’s sports documentary strand, here with a British edition. You’ll recognise the house style: talking heads lit like a whisky advert, plenty of archive and a soundtrack pushing you to feel something whenever the ball goes in.
Vinnie Jones built a whole career, twice, out of making people believe he might hurt them. The fun here is watching him admit how much of it was a performance.
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What works, and what doesn’t
The running time is the film’s best feature. At 77 minutes you can watch it after the kids have gone up and still get to bed before Newsnight finishes. Untold films are at their best when the subject is a real character and the archive is grubby and funny. Wimbledon in the late 80s gives you plenty of both: muddy pitches, terrible hair and a dressing room that health and safety would shut down today.
The worry with this sort of film is always access. When the subject is talking straight to camera and his old mates fill the rest of the frame, it’s easy for a documentary to drift into a testimonial. Football’s hard-man era looks rather different now. The tackles that got a laugh on Saturday night highlights would get a long ban today, and we now understand much more about what the game did to players’ bodies and minds. Whether the film sticks with that, or just plays the tackles for laughs, will decide whether it’s a proper documentary or a highlights package with feelings.
The second act: Lock, Stock and a lot of glaring
For many viewers the real reason to tune in is what came next. In 1998 Guy Ritchie cast Jones as Big Chris in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and it turned out that the glare that had frightened half the First Division looked even better on camera. Then came Bullet Tooth Tony in Snatch in 2000, and with it a whole new career in which Jones played, more or less, a heightened Vinnie Jones to audiences who’d never seen Wimbledon play.
That transition from footballer to film actor still has no real equivalent in British sport. Plenty of players have tried presenting, and a few have done panto. Very few ended up in Hollywood with a straight face. It’s the most interesting thread in the story, and the one most worth sticking around for.
What the critics say, and where to watch
Untold UK: Vinnie Jones premieres on Netflix in the UK on 26 May 2026, so it’s included in a standard subscription, which starts at £5.99 a month with adverts. Critics’ verdicts were still coming in as it launched, and there’s no Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic consensus yet. If you’ve enjoyed the earlier Untold films, you’ll know what you’re getting.
Verdict
Untold UK: Vinnie Jones is a short, pacey look back at a footballer who was always more interesting than his disciplinary record. It’s made for men who remember the Crazy Gang, still quote Lock, Stock down the pub and have a spare 77 minutes on a weeknight. Go in for the nostalgia and the archive rather than any serious reckoning with the game’s darker side.
Ashley Isaacs picks what's worth your evening – film, TV, streaming, music and books for men 45 and over with limited evenings and too many subscriptions. Reviews of what's new on Netflix, Prime Video, BBC iPlayer and the rest, crime dramas worth a weekend, and classics worth a second look. What's worth watching, what isn't, and where to find it in the UK.
One of Midcent's writers. Spotted something? Write to ashley@midcent.uk.
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