How the Essex Boys by Terry Winsor (2000) portrays codes and conventions of the Thriller Genre

Essex Boys is a 2000 film by Terry Winsor. The film stars Charlie Creed-Miles, Sean Bean and Alex Kingston. The film plot is loosely based around the story of events that occured december 1995 when three drug dealers where murdered in Rettendon, Essex, UK.

User review
"I didn't really like this movie, but had to admit it was compelling. Sean Bean gives a performance as the evil drug thug that compares favorably (if that's the word I want) with Dennis Hopper's crazed bully in "Blue Velvet." It's outstanding work, but if you're a Sharpe fan (and who isn't?) it may be a bit jarring. I mean, this guy throws acid in faces, beats his wife, laughs at suffering, rapes a teenager and strangles her more or less accidentally. That's in addition to selling the drugs and other criminal activities.
    Bean is, in fact, so good at being bad, he almost tips the movie over. Alex Kingston and Jim Wilkinson - versatile, dependable and often outstanding actors themselves, do what they can to take a scene away from him, and never quite manage. Charlie Creed-Miles, as the innocent who gets drawn into all this, is quite convincingly intimidated."

Professional review by BBC film
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.
 ....Even though Creed-Miles brings some warmth to Billy, he is often acting in one dimension only, and it is left to Bean to haunt you for some time afterwards as an unstable thug whom the actor keeps short of caricature. Alex Kingston, cast as Lock's wife, removes herself convincingly from her familiar role in ER and plays a woman whose toughness can't quite conceal her insecurity. But, as so often with this new rash of Brit gangster flicks, the structure is a bit wobbly, and so the film bounces between clever twists and convolution. Moreover, Terry Winsor just doesn't know how to end it."
The film Essex Boys portrays many different aspects of the thriller genre of which I shall be exploring in this analysis of the opening.
    

    The film begins with the opening sequence which instantly establishes the thriller genre of the film. It begins by including non-diegetic music, the sound of scratches, and white graphics as you are able to see to the right of the page. The black and white theme could be refering to film noir creating a visually appealing effect, also it could be a reference to good and ehas a strong resemblence to the sound of police or ambulance sirens which has been used to imply that the film will have some form of; violence, police involvment and crime. As the audience is aware of this it has a gripping effect, the audience want to know who is making the scratch marks and whether there will be any form of violence or crime within the film. The graphics could be considered as lines on a chalk board when looking at the black background, however paired with the scratching sounds the audience is led to think that they are actually reference to a car being scratched by a key. The music

   

The chalk line then dissolves into a scene within a garage. In this scene the audience hears a male voice over; we are unable to tell whether it is a form of story telling or if he is simply thinking to himself. The voice over is not specific to the thriller genre but is sometimes used for example in the Third Man has a voice over in the title sequence which brings the audience closer to the action and more involved. In Essex Boys it is used to encourage the audience from Billy's point of view however it also explains the events within the film. Winsor has made obvious Cultural signifiers through the strong Essex accent Billy has. Winsor has created a typical thriller scene here by using chiarscuro and noir lighting as well as the generic location of the garage. The chiarscuro has been used to create confusion within the audience as it connotates surrealism and nightmares. The garage has been used as it is a claustraphobic, enclosed space which connotes entrapment, it also foreshadows the entrapment Billy may later feel as he is scared and pressured by Jason. Both aspects of the mise-en-scene indicate that the film is a noir thriller and uses the thriller template, the ideology and the themes of corruption. Billy then switches on a light which creates non ambient lighting whilst throughout the scene we hear diegetic sounds which have been used to create realism which makes it believable to the audience that this could happen to anyone.

      The camera then cuts to Billy getting into the car. In the still to window wipers wiping off dirt and dusk revealing right a man standing to the left of the screen.  The glass window acts and represents the barrier between Billys and Jasons character however the removal of the dirt implies that Billy is revealing himself to Jason, therefore making himself vunerable. The dirt represents that the characters moral corruption as he could be considered as "dirt". As we can see from Jasons appearance, he is clearly a generic villian as we later sees he deals with "business" by using uncompromising violence, he is not scared and he doesn't care.

   Billy offers to work for Jason by driving him around. This still of the film shows various aspects linking with the thriller genre. The use of the tunnel promotes the generic enclosed space, Winsor has opted to use this location to show foreshadow that Billy will feel trapped by Jason. The audience are extremely aware of the notion of the vanishing point which seems to go on forever. This leads the audience into thinking that they are "Driving into nothing" and also that if Billy continues he will eventually vanish, making the audience sympathise with Billy. The tunnel also resembles the barrel of a gun, and could have been used to imply that Billy is now becoming involved with the crime.

    Winsor also uses clever lighting to portray thriller codes within this scene. The lights shown in the still to the left resembles prison bars which strongly connotes a feeling of entrapment; teamed with the claustraphobic location Winsor has created an extremely daunting effect on the audience and created extreme sense of unease and suspense..

    Jason goes to the essex marshes to leave his victim. The essex marshes is a further representation of Jasons character and his moral landscape, as the marshes have no visible boundries the audience are led to think that it is a representation of Jason's moral void. The marshes are bleak and dirty and act as an indication of the situation that Billy is in. The marshes create a daunting effect as the audience are aware that when the tide comes in it disapears, and as the marshes are a reflection of Jasons character it makes Jason seem like a strong, even ruthless character. The use of the generic white van in this scene also acts as an ironic poke at the thriller genre, the use of the white van is familiar to the use of the car boot as we are unaware of what is it, the van becomes almost an enigma. The use of the van makes the audience become suspicious and wary of the van as it is so generic.