Essex Boys Details

This slick British crime thriller breaks no new ground and tries too hard to be tough. Yet interest is sustained by taut pacing, a nicely murky plot and spirited performances from Alex Kingston, Tom Wilkinson, Charlie Creed-Miles and a scenery-chewing Sean Bean. The story centres on a young minicab driver who is hired by a hard man fresh out of prison. The youth finds himself in the firing line when a major drug deal prompts a power struggle among rival elements of the Essex criminal fraternity.

Violent gangster movie, in part based on a actual murder of three men, found shot dead in a car in an Essex wood in 1995, but otherwise a familiar fantasy of betrayal and revenge among thugs.