Absolutely the worst movie.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

I actually cannot believe what I have just seen. The acting was utterly appalling. Pat Tate was a man mountain that commanded respect, a steroid driven hulk. The guy playing him looks like hes never even walked past a gym let alone been in one. And tony tuckers character???? he'd be spinning in his grave. Id be more scared if my Nan piped up at me. and whose narrating this?? someone just wasted a whole bunch of money shooting this crap. its billed as the true story but anyone who knew the boys, or at least a basic knowledge of how the story goes will know that this movie is filled with more holes than a teabag. what the hell was the Amsterdam scene about?? when did that happen? and since when did mickey Steele supply the pills that put Leah in her coma. if the terrible, completely unbelievable character acting don't seal its fate, the atrocious production, editing and lighting certainly will. the only thing this DVD came in useful for was to De-ice my car windscreen. avoid it like the plague or spend an hour and a half of your life that you'll never get back. 1 out of 10

There have been three films made about this very case, which in my (not so) humble opinion is at least one too many... and this entry may be the straw that broke the dromedary's back. Hamstrung by a tw*t of a narrator who you want to psychically harm ever time he utters a syllable, and full of drug-snorting losers who can only repeat the C and F words ad infinitum, there is no-one here to care about and consequently, zero reason to keep you watching. Of course, this being a 'lads' movie they throw in a strip joint with plenty of gratuitous nudity for the undiscerning, but you can see more in Nuts magazine every week, so why not get a copy of that instead? Just don't bother trying to find it at the Co-op.The minor pleasures on offer here include a few scenes of ultra-violence perpetuated by our psychotic 'heroes'... at least you can can't accuse these parts of being dull. And, because this film is set in the mid-90's, the attempts at period detail are interesting... from chunky mobile phones to discussing the O J Simpson trial. Such isolated moments however, are overrun by tiresome kn*bs with annoying accents competing with each other to see who can be the biggest idiot. I think I'll declare a draw. And if another movie company decides to do yet ANOTHER version of this oft-told tale, could they do me a personal favour and... forget it? 4/10

So this is the fourth movie about the land rover and the shootings, and its the worst one yet.Essex Boys was bad but had Sean Bean in it, Bonded By Blood was also bad, but you really can't hate anything with Tamar Hassan in it, and Rise Of The Foot Soldier was surprisingly watchable.This though is really the lowest of the low, it's beyond Rancid Aluminium bad, and the acting is appalling.I thought it was going to be just another cockney, sweary, Danny Dyer type movie, which I can tolerate, but as soon as the narrator sounded like someone from an episode of Top Gear, I knew it wasn't going to be 'tasty'.For starters, the cast are the most pathetic depiction of 'Mockneys' I have ever seen, its as if every other word begins with C and has four letters, and anybody they do not know gets a lot of abuse for no good reason.So all in all, it's just another excuse for lads to swear and drink beer and just be totally wrong about facts and disrespectful to the dead.RIP Leah Betts.

There are now three movies on the 1995 Rettendon murders, if I have counted correctly. In chronological order: Essex Boys, The Rise Of The Foot Soldier, and now The Fall Of The Essex Boys. The former is a conventional feature movie (starring Sean Bean), the latter two use a documentary-style approach with first-person narrators. The Fall Of The Essex Boys tries to be the hardest of them all, it almost feels as if the narrator is spitting into your ear ("It didn't take long for the near gear to spread frough Essex like an effing virus.") The actors are all trying a bit to hard to appear tough as nails and their overdone Cockney accents quickly begin to grate. At the same time, it does a bad job at recounting at least a semblance of a plot. All three movies revel in machism and violence. If that's your cuppa, I recommend The Rise Of The Footsoldier, to which The Fall Of The Essex Boys has nothing to add (except maybe more plump-breasted birds).The fact that a fairly conventional triple gangland murder still spawns movies twenty years later tells you what a quiet little place Old Blighty really is.