Granada Presents
A GRANADA FILM PRODUCTION

EssexBoys

EssexBoys The Film Trailer Download Download Size 426KB Running Time : 1min 39sec

Written by Jeff Pope and Terry Winsor
Produced by Jeff Pope
Click here for Jeff Pope's thoughts on Essex Boys
Directed by Terry Winsor
Click here for Terry Winsor's thoughts on Essex Boys
Click here for Pippa Cross's thoughts on Essex Boys
www.pathe.co.uk

GRANADA PRESENTS
A GRANADA FILM PRODUCTION

SEAN BEAN
ALEX KINGSTON
CHARLIE CREED-MILES
TOM WILKINSON
LARRY LAMB

Casting Director Corinne Rodriguez
Editor Edward Mansell
Production Designer Chris Edwards
Director of Photography John Daly BSC
Original Music Colin Towns
Executive Producer Pippa Cross
Written by Jeff Pope and Terry Winsor
Produced by Jeff Pope
Directed by Terry Winsor

Click here for THE PRODUCTION STORY
Click here for CREW BIOGRAPHIES
Click here for ESSEX BOYS End Credits

This story is inspired by a single true event. It left three men dead, two serving life imprisonment and another living under an assumed identity.
The rest is fiction, as are all the characters.

SEAN BEAN
"There was always something that seemed to come back to the qualities that he could offer, and it then became a natural process to offer the part to him."

Click here for Sean Bean's thoughts about the character he plays in Essex Boys, Jason Locke.

ALEX KINGSTON
"...a bold character, someone who was attractive and strong, and could manipulate people.You can see in her eyes that she is capable of doing that."

Click here for Alex Kingston's thoughts about the character he plays in Essex Boys, Lisa Locke.

CHARLIE CREED-MILES
"He is there to be the everyman of the story. He represents all of us in a way."

Click here for Charlie Creed-Miles's thoughts about the character he plays in Essex Boys, Billy Reynolds.

TOM WILKINSON
"Within minutes of meeting him, we couldn’t see the character any other way."

Click here for Tom Wilkinson's thoughts about the character he plays in Essex Boys, John Dyke.

The tablets were a disaster - hospitalising a host of teenagers. Locke's reputation is in tatters. When threatened, Dyke offers details of a million pound cocaine shipment as compensation. Locke's gang plan to shoot not only the drug couriers, but also Billy and Dyke. But at the supposed rendezvous Dyke and his handyman, Henry Hobbs, ambush the gangsters and shoot them all dead.

Dyke asks Billy to work for him - driving Lisa and helping with an imminent shipment. Lisa moves smoothly into taking over the business and seducing Billy. Dyke, increasingly obsessed with Lisa, discovers this betrayal and tries to ambush Billy, but the young driver manages to escape with a consignment of drugs.

Billy (Creed-Miles) is a small-time cab driver, with small time ambitions, or at least he is until ex-con John Dyke (Wilkinson) sends him to drive for Jason Locke (Bean) a twitchy cockney wide-boy recently released from jail. Before Billy knows it, he is working for Jason full time, and after a brilliant improvisation, during a spectacular car chase; he earns himself the name Billy Whizz.

As plot and counterplot thicken, Billy finds himself pulled deeper into a complex and violent world, with some very nasty people, where sex is currency, drugs are plentiful and you shouldn't trust anyone.

Bean is terrifying as Locke, easily the hardest and nastiest he has ever been on screen. Locke is simply a monster; you just can't help but hate him. Jason's long suffering wife, Alex Kingston is a million miles away from her ER persona, still sexy as hell, but two faced, desparately vulnerable and as hard as nails.

Creed-Miles gives a fine performance, if it weren't for his exceptional performance, the film would have no soul at all. This film is a fiendishly plotted gangster film, suffused with an atmosphere of brooding, pervading dread.

In the midst of a proliferation of glossy, over-styled gangster movies replete with posh boys with guns and mockney accents, Essex Boys is as close as it gets to showing the real face of organised crime. And it's pretty ugly.

Jason Locke (Bean) is the face in question, recently released from jail - a thug for hire and professional headcase, he recruits young taxi driver Billy (Creed-Miles) as his personal chauffeur to ferry him around Essex as he settles old scores.

Spectacularly unpleasant as Locke is, he's little worse than any of his colleagues, a ruthless and cold-blooded bunch who throw people out of second floor windows for laughs. And Locke's ambitious wife Lisa (Kingston) is as hard and calculating as any of them, spending most of the film lounging aggressively in her underwear and plotting on behalf of her husband.

The beating heart and flicker of conscience in the film is provided by Billy who, although initially seduced by the easy money and the power of fear, soon realises that he's way out of his depth and sinking fast.

If you can stomach another gangster flick after the glut of Lock Stock series, Gangster No.1 and, er, Honest, then feast yourselves on this twist-ridden crime caper.

Fate plays a bad card for wide-eyed local lad Charlie Creed Miles, when he becomes Sean Bean's driver on his release from prison. Cue several look-away-from-the-screen moments as Sean drags Charlie deep into his drug-dealing underworld.

A kind of nouveau riche Goodfellas with chintzy brass fittings on top.

Billy Reynolds (Creed-Miles) is a young Essex lad training to be a cab driver. One day, his boss John Dyke (Wilkinson) asks him to act as driver for local hit man Jason Locke (Bean), just out after a five-year stretch. Jason has a few scores to settle. Though, at first, Billy relishes the excitement and the easy money, when the double-crosses and the killings mount up, he starts to want out. But he's in too deep…

The latest in the burgeoning Brit gangster cycle, Essex Boys thankfully avoids the jokey-blokey style of Lock, Stock and its multiple clones. This is a flint-edged tale in the tradition of Get Carter and the Long Good Friday, and the violence is grimly merciless. Bean makes a scarily convincing hard man, and there are gamley turns from Kingston as his abused and vengeful wife, and Wilkinson as landed gent with a well-concealed ruthless streak.

As soon as the opening titles hit the screen, you know that Essex Boys is going to be no easy ride. Essex Boys is a snapshot of life in the Essex underworld, inspired by a real life incident in which police found three men shot dead in a Range Rover.

Narrated by Billy Reynolds (Charlie Creed-Miles), a young taxi driver who is hired by John Dyke (Tom Wilkinson) as a driver for Jason Locke (Sean Bean), a local villain who has just been released from a five-year prison sentence.

Unflinching in its dialogue and depiction, Essex Boys is a brilliantly acted portrayal of the lives of a disparate group of villains, and there are scenes of frighteningly realistic violence.The relationship between Jason Locke and his wife Lisa (Alex Kingston) is an important part of the plot. Lisa is a very strong character; she has to be, to survive in Locke's world.

The final result is a fast-moving story with a plot that, at first, seems to follow the standard gangster movie trail of heist and subsequent cross and double cross. But there are unexpected twists and stings in the tail which confound us as much as they seem to confound Billy, resulting in a gripping, compelling story.