16 July 2000
Source: The Observer
Essex Boys
Philip French
Terry Winsor's Essex Boys stars Sean Bean (whose real-life Sheffield United tattoo is here doctored to make him a West Ham fan) as a gangster just out of jail and attempting to re-establish himself in the Southend clubs while seeking revenge on the grasses who put him away.
Inspired by a famous triple killing a couple of years ago, it's better than most recent British crime movies, doesn't glamorise its low-life characters and makes effective use of muddy locations on the Thames estuary. Charlie Creed-Miles is very good as a dim-witted gangland chauffeur who narrates the film; Tom Wilkinson has some terrible dialogue as an upwardly-mobile crook.
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