One of Britain's unique contributions to global culture is football hooliganism, so it's something of a surprise that this is only the second film to tackle the subject. Oddly, director Davis was in the cast of the first, the superior Gary Oldman TV movie The Firm. While that was an insider's view, I.D adopts the strategy of an American crime movie, following an undercover cop who infiltrates a hooligan gang, ultimately going native, seduced by the terrace thuggery.
John (Dinsdale), an ambitious constable, is the most committed member of a four-man team sent into the streets, and onto the footie terraces of East London to get in with the hardcore yobbos who support a made-up team, Shadwell Town. At this point the movie starts to brew up a traditional conspiracy plot, but drops all the mystery almost instantly. Instead, it turns into a character study, with John, an upwardly mobile working-class bloke with an aspirational girlfriend (Clare Skinner) and Ikea furniture, gradually transforming into a caveman.
All four cops discover an atavistic obsession with football (though we never get a single frame of on-pitch action), but John alone revels in the opportunities for drunkenness, violence and copping off with harsh barmaid Reeves, attaining himself hero status among his fellow Neanderthals.