Essex BoysBy Rahim Rahat

Background Released on: 14th July 2000 Directed by: Sacha Bennett This film starts off as a young taxi driver is offered a job to help a small-time hard man get

a little revenge. As the film progresses, he gets money and he thinks he is gaining respect from the other gang members. Then there comes a time where he is woken at night, only to find a Range Rover outside his house: his boss is expecting him to drive this to pick up the rest of the gang and take them to their awaiting fate…

“Lack of originality hasn't stopped British director after British director pumping out gangster films by the batch, as if no other form of cinema existed. To them, of course, it doesn't. They can only acquire directorial street-cred by stuffing the screen with psychos and letting it drip with blood. One cannot, then, imagine that "Essex Boys'" director and co-writer Terry Winsor has not watched "Goodfellas" at least several hundred times…” – BBC Reviews, 13th July 2000

Mise-En-Scene The opening of the film immediately starts with white on black which is

a very common component of thrillers and is used in films such as Kill Bill and Once Upon a Time In America. This connotes an envelopment of darkness and this is reinforced by the chiaroscuro lighting of the garage. The enclosed and isolating size of the garage is very conventional of the thriller genre and creates an atmosphere of claustrophobia, which constructs connotations of vulnerability and being haunted. The dusty, dirty car implies that the owner doesn’t possess much wealth and therefore makes them vulnerable and desperate. Keeping half of Jason Locke’s character in shadow connotes that he has a split personality and a very dark alter ego. The envelopment of darkness in the tunnel is a possible metaphor in terms of the events that will follow on throughout the movie. When the first character is inside the car, it creates an atmosphere of entrapment and implications of ‘shielding himself’. This is another convention of the thriller genre as it is used in ‘Witness’ when Samuel is stuck in the toilet cubicles, he has nowhere to go. In this situation, the sense of entrapment isn’t used quite to that extent.

Camera and Editing The use of a high angle shot at the beginning creates connotations of

intimidation, weakness and reinforces vulnerability. The length of the shot implies connotations of torture, pain, awkwardness and fear. The use of the windscreen wiper to transition to a close up shot expresses the serious expression on the face of Jason Locke. The low angle in the tunnel creates a connotation of a gun chamber. This is a twist on the convention of an antagonist looking down the barrel of a gun. The shakiness of the camera in the tunnel connotes nervousness, pressure and tension which is a common theme that is used in thriller such as The Third Man and The Bourne films. The grey filter is an embodiment of a bleak, dark and tragic atmosphere which are also common topics explored within the thriller genre. The voiceover is a clear cultural signifier as it is immediately associated with Essex. It also connotes unintelligence which reinforces vulnerability and brainwashing.