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Essex Boys
List Price: Unknown [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie:
"Essex Boys" is a miniature crime thriller. Although crime has been played more for dark comedy lately (see Guy Ritchie's terrific "Snatch"), "Essex Boys" goes more back towards the "Reservoir Dogs" territory of more serious, atmospheric crime drama. The film follows a group of criminals in the Essex underground - narrated by Billy Reynolds (Charlie Creed-Miles), the film opens with him being hired to drive Jason Locke (Sean Bean), a criminal who has just been released from prison.
Billy has always been a hanger-on to the criminal group, hired by John Dyke (Tom Wilkinson) to do various jobs. He admires the fast lifestyle that these people lead, but the violence that he keeps seeing around him constantly brings him back down to Earth. Locke is especially brutal, letting loose with a rage against all of those who have wronged him in the past.
Yet, the film remains problematic. For a crime thriller, the film remains too reliant on very basic dialogue - it never really develops the characters that much and certainly, none of them are sympathetic. In other words, the film plays like occasional violence between several conversation-heavy stretches. We don't care about the characters and as a result, the film drags.
"Essex Boys" could have been a better picture - there's certainly some good actors. But, it simply doesn't have a screenplay capable of generating any interest in what's going on.
The DVD
VIDEO: "Essex Boys" is presented by Miramax in a suprisingly good 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer. The studio has done mixed work on smaller titles in the past - and although "Essex Boys" does have some faults to the image, more often than not it looked terrific. Sharpness and detail was very good - there were some dimly lit interior sequences that looked a bit soft, but otherwise, the image looked well-defined. Many scenes boasted a good deal of depth to the image, even.
The faults that I mentioned before are noticable, but minor. A couple of scenes display some very light hints of edge enhancement and traces of pixelation, but neither problem was distracting. Print flaws also popped up occasionally, but these little marks and scratches were infrequent in appearance and tiny.
Colors looked excellent. The film has quite a few scenes in clubs with a lot of neon, and the colors looked sharp and well-saturated. Flesh tones also came across looking natural and accurate and overall, although there were a few bumps, this was a pretty nice transfer.
SOUND: "Essex Boys" is presented Dolby Digital 5.1 and sounds quite good, although not anything exceptional. Much of the film has the sound focused in the front speakers, as dialogue and in-scene music is the element that dominated many scenes. Surround use is fairly involving as the score often fills the room. The surrounds also offer the occasional ambient sound and sound effects. Some people may have a bit of a problem understanding the accents, but dialogue is generally clear.
MENUS:: Simple, film-themed images serve as backgrounds.
EXTRAS: Nothing.
Final Thoughts: "Essex Boys" has a cast of fine actors, but remains a dull thriller. For $32.99, the DVD is also too expensive seeing that there are no extras. Not recommended.
"Essex Boys" is a miniature crime thriller. Although crime has been played more for dark comedy lately (see Guy Ritchie's terrific "Snatch"), "Essex Boys" goes more back towards the "Reservoir Dogs" territory of more serious, atmospheric crime drama. The film follows a group of criminals in the Essex underground - narrated by Billy Reynolds (Charlie Creed-Miles), the film opens with him being hired to drive Jason Locke (Sean Bean), a criminal who has just been released from prison.
Billy has always been a hanger-on to the criminal group, hired by John Dyke (Tom Wilkinson) to do various jobs. He admires the fast lifestyle that these people lead, but the violence that he keeps seeing around him constantly brings him back down to Earth. Locke is especially brutal, letting loose with a rage against all of those who have wronged him in the past.
Yet, the film remains problematic. For a crime thriller, the film remains too reliant on very basic dialogue - it never really develops the characters that much and certainly, none of them are sympathetic. In other words, the film plays like occasional violence between several conversation-heavy stretches. We don't care about the characters and as a result, the film drags.
"Essex Boys" could have been a better picture - there's certainly some good actors. But, it simply doesn't have a screenplay capable of generating any interest in what's going on.
The DVD
VIDEO: "Essex Boys" is presented by Miramax in a suprisingly good 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer. The studio has done mixed work on smaller titles in the past - and although "Essex Boys" does have some faults to the image, more often than not it looked terrific. Sharpness and detail was very good - there were some dimly lit interior sequences that looked a bit soft, but otherwise, the image looked well-defined. Many scenes boasted a good deal of depth to the image, even.
The faults that I mentioned before are noticable, but minor. A couple of scenes display some very light hints of edge enhancement and traces of pixelation, but neither problem was distracting. Print flaws also popped up occasionally, but these little marks and scratches were infrequent in appearance and tiny.
Colors looked excellent. The film has quite a few scenes in clubs with a lot of neon, and the colors looked sharp and well-saturated. Flesh tones also came across looking natural and accurate and overall, although there were a few bumps, this was a pretty nice transfer.
SOUND: "Essex Boys" is presented Dolby Digital 5.1 and sounds quite good, although not anything exceptional. Much of the film has the sound focused in the front speakers, as dialogue and in-scene music is the element that dominated many scenes. Surround use is fairly involving as the score often fills the room. The surrounds also offer the occasional ambient sound and sound effects. Some people may have a bit of a problem understanding the accents, but dialogue is generally clear.
MENUS:: Simple, film-themed images serve as backgrounds.
EXTRAS: Nothing.
Final Thoughts: "Essex Boys" has a cast of fine actors, but remains a dull thriller. For $32.99, the DVD is also too expensive seeing that there are no extras. Not recommended.
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