SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

Steineded How sad is this?

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

jadavix "Essex Boys" is a movie that starts in entirely familiar territory, and then abruptly shifts gears in the final act to give us twists that were unexpected and perhaps even incongruous. It's enough to make me wonder if some kind of jiggery pokery happened behind the scenes to the effect of: one writer was fired and another hired, or producers gave the screenwriter(s) carte blanche at the zero hour to branch off in an unfamiliar direction.The beginning is about a young man who gets involved with a criminal gang. One of its members, a psychopath played by Sean Bean, has just got out of gaol. "Billy Whizz", as they call the young man, impresses his new cronies but you know sooner or later it's going to be a tale of "you play with fire, you get burnt". I wasn't paying that much attention to these parts, to be honest. We've seen it all before, and it certainly offers nothing new.And then there's the gear change, with a truly surprising revelation, and the movie gets much darker, not only in dramatic tone, but in colour: most of the last part of the movie is shot at night. It ends with more twists that are impressive in the way they are thought out, if not entirely in the way they are implemented. The beginning and end feel like different movies; I would have liked to see the proper beginning and middle for the final act, rather than the impostors we ended up with.

ianlouisiana Completely unconvincing comic book violence trivialising the life,death and crimes of three distinctly frightening but small-time cons from the East London/Essex borderlands.The Rettendon Range Rover murders have proved a cash cow for crime writers,ex-villains,grasses and their ilk for some years,with rumour and counter-rumour circulating from the outer reaches of the Metropolitan Police District to Southend itself. Did The Bill get the right geezers for it?Did one of them,a registered police informant,tell his handler it was all going off and then get the order to go ahead with it anyway? Were they shot elsewhere and driven out into the country?Was the vehicle loaded with drugs that swiftly vanished before the photographers got there?Well,I don't know,and ,frankly,I don't care.It's a high-risk trade,you want low-risk take up basket weaving. Mr Sean Bean plays a crim who's so ludicrously and obviously a total nutter that,in real life,nobody would ever work with him.He'd be quietly "disappeared" to sighs of relief all round. Miss Alex Kingston as his lady is marginally better than Penelope Keith would have been - but only marginally.Her attempts at Estuary English are,frankly,embarrassing. The police - pawns in Miss Kingston's grand design - are either corrupt or grossly incompetent,an irrelevance in the serious business of importing and distributing illegal drugs. Mr Bean's character speaks appallingly,has a poor vocabulary and has trouble relating positively to women.I can only assume he skipped the "Anger Management" classes during his last spell of bird. However,having said all those nasty things about him I still can't believe even a complete knobhead would allow Miss Kingston to blindside him.Perhaps he was dazzled by her brilliant conversation,her grasp of Proustian philosophy? Whatever,it fails to add verisimilitude to an account of dubious veracity. Surely with "Essex Boys" the seam of Britcrim movies has been well and truly mined out,if not can "Buckinghamshire Boys" be far behind?

donaldthomson A good film on several levels. The unflattering comparisons that some critics have made between it and The Usual Suspects are completely misguided as directorial intent and effect in the two pictures are dissimilar. Winsor's film, it seems to me, brilliantly evokes both the drabness and cruelty of the criminal mindset. It does this partly through the choice of dull, flat Essex landscapes with their coastal marshes, grey motorway links, flash nouveau riche mansions and the tawdry glamour of seafront locations. The characters are both repellent and yet curiously mesmerising. This is not a film in which it is easy to lose interest. Nobody can do psycho-thug better than Sean Bean, and Charlie Creed-Miles has created a dangerously weak character as Billy, whom it is almost possible to feel sorry for without actually liking. The film is very well lit, though I did find sound levels a little dodgy at times It's a film that, despite critics' comments, is not a million miles from Get Carter in quality.

Craig Whyel An entertaining work despite trying to do too much.They are trying to do a story based on an actual event then fictionalize it then try to make it in the stylized version of the U.K. gang films.There is an abundance of accents and moments that seem very familiar (as if they've been inspired by other movies).There is no lack of violence, nudity and swerves as required for a gangster picture but in all, I enjoyed watching it.It's not a classic but it's better than a lot of gangster flicks out there.I'm glad I gave it a shot.