TV Review: Mad Dogs
There was a swimming pool too in Mad Dogs, another high-quality four-parter. This time it didn't represent the fruits of inequality so much as the listless mirage of material success. It belonged to Alvo (Ben Chaplin), an Englishman businessman living in Spain, who invited his four oldest friends to spend a week enjoying his lavish hospitality.
But what started out as a carefree laddish jolly for four middle-aged blokes soon hardened under the baking sun into something more sinister and troubling. With a fine cast (John Simm, Philip Glenister, Marc Warren and Max Beesley), the film created an unsettling atmosphere and displayed a precision awareness of male midlife insecurities. "You go from you're going to live forever," complained Glenister's character, "to you've got a brain tumour every time you've got a headache."
Not a great deal happened in the first episode, until the explosive final scene of Alvo's murder, but the languor was intensely watchable, partly owing to the strong performances but also to the writer's ear for strained banter and latent aggression. Then there was the sun, which acts as a kind of magnifying glass on English discomfort. Under its fierce glare hidden rivalries began to seep out like sweat, and images washed across the surface with surreal clarity. The vision of an assassin in a Tony Blair mask will live long in the memory, but it won't be as hard to forget as Warren in a pair of budgie smugglers. Englishman really shouldn't venture out in the midday sun.
But what started out as a carefree laddish jolly for four middle-aged blokes soon hardened under the baking sun into something more sinister and troubling. With a fine cast (John Simm, Philip Glenister, Marc Warren and Max Beesley), the film created an unsettling atmosphere and displayed a precision awareness of male midlife insecurities. "You go from you're going to live forever," complained Glenister's character, "to you've got a brain tumour every time you've got a headache."
Not a great deal happened in the first episode, until the explosive final scene of Alvo's murder, but the languor was intensely watchable, partly owing to the strong performances but also to the writer's ear for strained banter and latent aggression. Then there was the sun, which acts as a kind of magnifying glass on English discomfort. Under its fierce glare hidden rivalries began to seep out like sweat, and images washed across the surface with surreal clarity. The vision of an assassin in a Tony Blair mask will live long in the memory, but it won't be as hard to forget as Warren in a pair of budgie smugglers. Englishman really shouldn't venture out in the midday sun.
Original article can be found here.
