Source: Reel Screen
06 July 2000
"ESSEX BOYS"
Country: UK
Producer: Jeff Pope
Prod. Company: Granada
Director: Terry Winsor
Screenplay: Jeff Pope and Terry Winsor
Cast: Sean Bean, Alex Kingston, Charlie Creed-Miles, Tom Wilkinson
UK Release Date: July 14th 2000
If a script called 'Essex Boys' landed on your desk you probably
wouldn't get all that excited. That is unless an ex-public schoolboy
hadn't just dropped his h's and made a quota-quickie down a back
alley that propelled him into the same universe as Madonna and
Brad Pitt.
And so it is that we get the latest in the seemingly never-ending
stream of 'Lock Stock' surrogates. 'Love Honour And Obey' pissed
off just about everyone, 'Circus' followed through with a boot
to the head, and films like 'The Criminal' seem destined to stay
on the shelf for the sanity of all concerned. Then the 'Lock Stock'
TV series swaggered past sticking two fingers in the air, and
'Gangster No.1' started confusing everyone by actually being a
brilliant film. And now we get just what we've always deserved,
a film called 'Essex Boys'.
It's actually completely inaccurate and very lazy to compare 'Lock
Stock' to all the films that have followed in its wake. While
there can be no doubt that the commissioning execs have excelled
themselves in their own stupidity by all jumping on the latest
bandwagon and then - oh surprise, surprise - falling foul to the
backlash that the tea boy could have predicted, the filmmakers
themselves have usually had slightly higher aspirations.
Like 'Gangster No.1', 'Essex Boys' takes itself seriously, avoiding
any knowing winks and post-modern ironic tongue-in-cheek shenanigans.
Both of the films' makers are quick to dismiss the 'Lock Stock'
approach (that probably made theirs possible) as cartoonish buffoonery,
their references going back to the likes of 'Get Carter' and 'The
Long Good Friday' instead.
Billy (Creed-Miles), a young taxi driver,
is hired by a local Mister Big (the Full Monty's Tom Wilkinson)
to drive for Jason Locke (Bean), a local thug just out of prison.
First port of call sees Locke throw acid in a man's face and dump
him out at sea. Things go downhill from there and little Billy
soon finds himself "up to his neck in it".
'Essex Boys' makes no attempt to break new ground, but does make
a very serious effort to make the most of old ground. The characters
are all little more than stock figures for the genre; Billy is
the innocent thrown in over his head, Locke is the psychopathic
animal, Lisa (Alex Kingston) his harder-than-nails wife, and the
rest of the cast is rounded out by one dimensional wide-boys,
munching on cigars and spitting out smoked salmon sandwiches.
Tom Wilkinson's Mister Big is the only unusual character, a well-spoken
green-wellie type who is totally unconvincing as any kind of criminal
whatsoever.
The script is formulaic enough, although can rarely decide which
story it is really telling. Billy's voiceover implies that he
is the centre of a rites of passage journey into crime, while
Locke and Lisa's turbulent relationship is studied in-depth enough
to tip us off that they are actually the main characters, and
the rival gangs and overlapping drug deals become little more
than a blur of names and places. The structure seems equally off-centre.
"Inspired by a single true event that left three men dead,
two serving life imprisonment and another living under an assumed
identity", the story then goes on past its conclusion to
drop in the final twists that this wafer thin connection to reality
requires. Hence the last fifteen minutes seem far too laboured
- a closer look at the wrapping up of all the loose ends in 'Goodfellas'
wouldn't have gone a miss.
Missing either the cool of 'Get Carter'
or the scale of 'The Long Good Friday', and just telling it straight
instead, 'Essex Boys' ends up somewhere in the middle ground between
Mike Figgis' 'Stormy Monday' and Alan Clarke's 'The Firm'. That's
still pretty good company to be keeping, and this is easily deserving
of its place among them - way out and above the likes of 'Circus'
and the rest.
What the film really has going for it is the strength of its lead
actors. Sean Bean is as good as he ever has been - which is very
good - and Charlie Creed-Miles puts in a surprisingly subtle turn,
avoiding the over-the-top mannerisms that his wide-boy on the
make could have given in to. It's Alex Kingston, though, who makes
the best of what's on offer, creating by far the most interesting
and fully-rounded character of them all.
What a shame they called it 'Essex Boys'.
REVIEWER: * * *
Audience:
'Essex Boys' is a superior TV movie, and on TV it will eventually
find a very appreciative audience of several million British couch
spuds. It's chances of finding an audience on the big screen it's
being thrown onto are, however, pretty minimal. Even if 'Gangster
No.1' can navigate the genre backlash, which still remains to
be seen, the title 'Essex Boys', and a lack of any real 'style'
is unlikely to get many spuds dishing out their tenners for the
cinematic Lakeside experience.
The press may not be going to give this as much of a slating as
you'd expect though - only three of them turned up to the screening!
What that probably implies is that they'll slate it anyway, without
having seen it. It's just that title...
AUDIENCE RATING: * *
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