Shocking dialogue and acting, with no redeeming features whatsoever. The fight scenes are dreadful, the sound is dreadful, the plot is dreadful and the cast are dreadful. Gunfire sounds like firecrackers and the dialogue sounds as if the actors were making it up as they went along. Fight scenes are comedic, in that there is no rehearsed moves and sound effects, so all you get is a few grunts here and there and screwed up noses. The budget for this movie must have been around a hundred quid. Wardrobe looks limited to Sue Ryder, especially the bald 'heavy', who clearly drew the short-straw when it came to attire! It really boils down to a gangster war consisting of about ten people - 'very scary'. Nothing about this film is believable, from the ridiculous opening scenes, where we see two gangs of over the hill thugs, doing everything but FIGHT, despite being six feet apart - just enough room for the 5 or so extras, dressed as riot police to fit in (obviously a tight budget). Only then do we see some pathetic shoving about, resembling a fight in a Thursday morning Post Office pension queue. What is puzzling is that the rogue policeman, despite taking over the protection racket (consisting of one garage) and telling the owner he has to pay 'him' now, then inexplicably shoots him in virtually the next scene, thereby rendering the exercise pointless. It's safe to assume that I hated this movie - low-budget it may be but every single facet of this movie is appalling. With better direction, a better script and a few more quid spent, this might have been redeemable. As it is, it's simply amateurish and embarrassingly bad!

To start off I am a big fan of all films old,new,bad and good....But this is just beyond belief. It is so bad I do not know where to start!!??. The acting is horrendous , camera work shocking and directing .. abysmal. I think, reading between the "lines" (lol) it was trying to be a Lock Stock Style film....but what a failure. The accents where a joke. Watch out for the amateur acting as if they are waiting for each others line and not sure whos next....poor director?The fight scenes are farcical...note the police one at the start in the yard. I have always looked at the rating scores here for films but now I seriously have grave doubts. Every review was about 1 or 2.....one critic put it at 5 stars!...yeh right! How the hell did it get its rating of 5.5+. Lot of false reviews here me thinks. AVOID please.

The real (yes folks real!!) Carlton Leach introduces the film by way of an unenthusiastic voice over and a scene of him just enjoying a quiet pint of stout, and then walking off......And then the film goes gradually downhill from there. From the mess of a narrative, it's about a lad called Danny, who's thrown away the bad boy lifestyle for the love of a lovely lady and a life of poor acting.The thing is though, he had no idea that one of the blokes from London's Burning (the same one who's trying to cut down on the price of his energy bills in the new advert) is a bent copper, whom just happens to be doing a gangland hit in the same area where Danny's mrs has just told him there's a baby on the way.To cut a long story short, she gets killed, he gets left for dead, gets better, and goes for revenge once he gets better.This weeks straight to DVD crime drama with the words 'Essex' and 'Survival' is really hitting a new low for these turgid excuses for films, and you know a film is in trouble when the DVD cover features a five star review from the reputable publication The Daily Sport, the same newspaper that gave us the story about a double decker bus being found on the moon.Less to say, the film is an ordeal to watch, and makes this years Assassin (the one with the Kemps and Dyer) look like Mean Streets.The acting is non existent, and when amateurs make TV actors such as Birdsall, and the two blokes from London's Burning look like Pacino and De Niro's finest hour, you know just how poor the quality of the film is.But you need to watch this film just to appreciate how much Guy Ritchie's first two movies have influenced a sub genre that just will not seem to run out of steam. There are at least twenty or thirty films like these released every year, and once in a while, there are a couple of decent ones released (We Still Kill The Old Way, and Guvnors spring to mind), but in hindsight, I will never watch a film/documentary/TV show with the word Essex in it again.Special mention to the actor who plays Lee, I've seen more emotion in an out of date Porkpie that's been found in the boot of a really hot car five weeks after being purchased.Terrible stuff.

What this lacks in the way of a script, direction, acting, camera work, technical production it makes up for by just being rubbish on an epic scale. I'll be taking this back tomorrow and asking for a refund, it was disappointing on so many levels I don't know how to continue this review.Well done.....Really I mean it.....I'm not just saying it to bring up the word count....Yup.... really..... all I need is ten lines and this can be posted as a reviewjust a few moreand here we are.....