Essex Boys (2000) - Analysis

     Essex Boys was made in 2000 by director Terry Winsor and it was shown across 54 screens on the opening weekend, 16 July 2000 - making a total of £111,548. The film is a Crime Thriller with a fairly low budget - which adds to the realism of the film.

   The opening of the film starts with some very effective chiaroscuro lighting (the technique of using light and shade in pictorial representation) to evoke mystery and to give the audience a focus point as the lightest place in an image is where the eye is drawn to firstly. The strong shadows means that the audience is constantly drawn the brightest part of the shot, being the area closest the the lighting - meaning the director is able to confine areas in which the director wants the audience to focus on. An intertextual reference to this is could be the scene in Fight Club (1999) where the light is shining on character to illuminate and show the character to the audience, but at the same time the audience is focused solely on that character without being distracted by any light in the background.

    The use of lighting is further seen when 'Jason' appears in front of the car as the windscreen wipers are turned on to clear the dirt. This is used to connote dirt and filth about Jason as a character, that he is a troubled character and also a dirty character that is involved with the underworld of society. The use of lighting is to focus the audience directly onto Jason as the lighting is only on Jason, nothing else is illuminated around him - showing him to be a main character.

     Thriller conventions are used to show the genre, the wet streets and unglamourous location of the concrete filled streets of Essex make for a dim location that crime such as this could occur. Also the 'run-down' car makes it seem that these people are of a lower class living in the suburbs of a city.

     The next key location is the tunnel, although it looks harmless to begin with, when looked at in depth it hides many metaphors about the characters - foreshadowing events to come - also because it is a vanishing point the audience knows that there is something going to happen at that point.
    The tunnel itself looks like a barrel of a gun, which is a thriller convention in itself because guns connote violence and death - which could be seen to foreshadow upcoming events to do with the characters in the car.
    As the characters drive past there are signs on the floor and on the side of the road. The sign saying 'STOP' could indicate that the character driving the car should stop the car because they are going to put themselves in danger or somebody else - which is shown to be true later in the scene.
   Another sign, on the floor this time, says 'STAY IN LANE'. This could be said that it was used to show that they should stop and stay in the correct lane of life, a metaphor for Jason  being a bad influence on Billy and that he should concentrate on being on the correct path of life and stay away from the dirty underworld that Jason belongs to.
    

The 'loud' shirt and the laid back pose suggests to the audience that Jason is very vain and arrogant. The bright colour shows that he is a dominant male and demands attention, but the relaxed pose suggests that he is very comfortable with everything in his life and he is aware of the fact that he is very dominant and can ask for anything and get his own way because he has power in his domain. 

The reflection of the lights on the tunnel onto the car that Billy's driving is used purposefully by the director to connote prison, violence and danger. It also is used to show Billy as a weak, easily lead character and Jason in the background very dominant and laid back about the situation. The bars connote jail and the car connotes a journey, showing to the audience that Jason is guiding Billy on a dangerous journey towards a life of crime and perhaps jail as that's where Jason has just arrived back from. 

  The Thriller convention of a seemingly endless landscape is prominent in Essex Boys, such as when Jason attacks the man in the Essex marshes. The vanishing point connote danger and shows the audience that something is going to happen before it happens, such as Jason throwing acid over the man. It also is seemingly endless, which along with being a Thriller convention it shows that Jason has no moral boundaries - that he will do anything for revenge or his own pride without thinking of the consequences or the impact upon others.
  The use of this long shot as the van drives away reinforces this idea of Jason having no moral boundaries or stability because there is no limit to the landscape - used as a metaphor. Also the use of the white van is because of the connotations of danger and the enigma around 'white vans' - this is used to try to show them as enigmatic figures because the audience doesn't know much about them as of yet and it also connotes the danger aspect as well as the fact that they want to remain enigmatic to hide their identity from any crimes committed.