Essex Boys: Law of Survival

OK, so I noticed this film and got hooked in by the 5 star blah blah and the (at the time) IMDb rating of 7.0. Usually means it will be of a decent standard even if you don't like the premise or the movie itself. Oh how wrong. I couldn't literally believe how bad ALL of the acting was. Some people mention the performance of the lead actor; well they are clearly his friends because he was the best of a very bad bunch. The guy who played the character "Lee" was so miscast it is untrue. You will never hear an Essex "hard man" talk the way that he does. It was hard enough anyway but from the moment he entered the movie any ounce of seriousness I had had evaporated. Such a poor actor. I would go so far as to say it was a total embarrassment to the British film industry and I hope I never watch a movie as bad ever again. I lasted around 30 minutes and then my girlfriend and I watched "The Martian", then you can see what real actors can actually do. Do not waste your time. It won't be long until this film has a 3/4 rating on here, and even that would be extremely generous.

I don't know where to begin... I was a huge fan of the original Essex Boys and Rise of the Foot Soldier movie, and then I watched Essex Boys: Retribution which was totally appalling. I always find it a shame when low budget movies are made only to try and ride on the coat tails of a decent original, so I'm a bit disappointed in myself for getting my hopes up when I saw Essex Boys: Law of Survival.

I found the whole movie very poor, right from the get go we are introduced to the absolutely dire narration. Apparently the fact that the intro was played and narrated by the real character is supposed to be something of a beacon for the movie, but unfortunately it just shows us what we have to put up with for the next hour and a half.

The acting throughout the movie is terrible, and it seems as if the "actors" are all reading the script for the first time on camera. It comes across as more of a cheap football hooligan type movie than a British gangster flick, with incredibly shocking fight scenes which don't give off a whiff of violence or aggression and are far too fluffy to even come close to convincing us that these are supposed to be feared "hard men" that are being depicted.

Won't go into the plot as I'm sure people will still want to watch the movie. At the most it's probably worth having on for the sake of a bit of background noise which you might give an occasional glance, but it certainly isn't worthy of complete concentration for the duration of the movie.

So I am full of hope, the Brits made another awesome hooligan movie.

What the hell, what is this? I have questions, millions of question.

1) Is that chubby lead actor very rich? Did he buy himself a role? It can not be he was casted. Surely? 2) Why, in the opening scene, show a woman with big boobs, and then the whole movie nothing, absolutely nothing? Did they know the movie was so bad that the only way people would sit through this was the promise of massive jugs? 3) Fighting scenes. In 1960 they knew how to make the scenes better.

This movie is an insult to all those great cult movies, is an insult to acting, actors and everything it stands for. Non of these actors should ever be allowed to be on the white-screen again. Isn't there some sort of police for this? I had to create an IMDb account, just to express my disbelieve.

To start off I am a big fan of all films old,new,bad and good....But this is just beyond belief. It is so bad I do not know where to start!!??. The acting is horrendous , camera work shocking and directing .. abysmal. I think, reading between the "lines" (lol) it was trying to be a Lock Stock Style film....but what a failure. The accents where a joke. Watch out for the amateur acting as if they are waiting for each others line and not sure whos next....poor director?

The fight scenes are farcical...note the police one at the start in the yard. I have always looked at the rating scores here for films but now I seriously have grave doubts. Every review was about 1 or 2.....one critic put it at 5 stars!...yeh right! How the hell did it get its rating of 5.5+. Lot of false reviews here me thinks. AVOID please.

The majority of the acting was really bad but Chris Bell! He looked and did not act well before he ended up in the hospital, he has about as much acting ability as my goldfish, what an absolute waste of space.

There was no emotion from anyone, the lack of budget (or the look af lack of funds) really lets the film down, the acting is cardboard from start to finish.