Essex Boys: Law of Survival

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.

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.

Let's line up the bad points about this fiasco.

1. The worst fight scenes ever. I mean ever. Three year old kids playing army are more convincing.

2. A tenuous link to a true story. VERY tenuous.

3. Acting that would shame a town hall amateur dramatics group.

4. An American accent that makes Dick Van Dyke sound like a linguistics expert.

5. Camera work of the lowest quality. Poor framing and poorer lighting. I don't believe any of these idiots have ever held a camera.

6. 90 minutes to tell a ten minute story. This could've been a short and saved us all a lot of grief.

7. Blood. Ketchup might be cheaper than stage blood. Problem is, it looks like ketchup.

Now the good points.

1. It ended.

I cannot remember watching a movie with such bad acting. With an idiotic plot, this film is a complete embarrassment to the British film industry. Believe me when I say that it is probably the worst I have ever seen. I saw that it had a 7.1 IMDb rating, and thought it might be good. How wrong I was. Hard men who are not hard. Fights that look like they are taking place in a school playground. Blood as thick as ketchup. To sum it up. This is NOT how to make a movie. I find it difficult to believe that a review on this film has to be 10 lines long. There are not enough words to describe how bad it really is. One actor whom I remember from Londons Burning, had the lead bad guy role. He won't get employment in films again. There was also a bloke with a flat cap who was supposed to be hard. He looked totally out of place with his not hard posing. Then there was the bad dying. I thought actors learned how to die on screen. These guys must have been in the pub on the day that acting school was teaching the pupils how to die. Watching this film will make you despair at the waste of money and time used in churning out this complete drivel .