Men Up

Men Up is a BBC television movie regarding the clinical trials for a new wonder drug formulated in the 1990s. It went on to be called Viagra.

It is based on true facts which means about 1% of it is true. This dramedy features five men who have been selected by Dr Dylan Pearce (Aneurin Barnard.) He is an expert on flaccid issues caused by diabetes.

This new wonder drug could be a boon. Especially for the men who are selected to try the pills out.

Of course during the course of the movie. There are side effects, the drug is not a quick fix. The drug cannot solve some underlying issues with some of the relationships. One or two marriages are on the verge of breaking apart. One man pretends to be hetereosexual when he has been in a same sex relationship for years. Being gay was against the rules of the medical trials. For one man the drug does not work at all.

It was enjoyable enough but to me it felt like this was a movie made by a committee. There was nothing creative or edgy here.

A most entertaining movie. It is done with great sensitivity, utilising great actors. The story is both sad and heartwarming. By the time it's over, you laughed a lot, wiped away a few tears, and got angry a few times. It's really well done, happy to have watched it. It shows a very vulnerable side of men, and how inept society can be when approaching it. It is thought provoking, but not boring or forced. Lately there has been an amazing abundance of absolute rubbish movies where one just can't figure out how on Earth they got green lit, so it is very refreshing to see a recent film that has heart, talent, and a story that can keep the viewer's interest.

How refreshing it is to watch a program set outside London and not be distracted by fake accents or characters shoehorned in to the script.

A well put together cast with a range of threads running through the main narrative. The film isn't going to break any records but it tells an interesting story from different points of view. It doesn't try to be anything it's not by going over the top with the storylines or time-period references.

The story itself is one that deserves to be told and the film is sympathetic to the feelings of people that would have taken part in the real life trials.

An enjoyable watch, which should be praised for concentrating on telling the story.

This unexpectedly uplifting (pun intended) Welsh viagra dramedy from Banana collaborators RTD and Matthew Barry was splurged out after Christmas on the BBC and it's a solidly warm little package sculpted out of real events which has some hardness about it but is mostly fairly flaccid. Sorry. What it lacks in punch it makes for with a tremendously good cast, the strength of which alone convinced me to watch it. The great Rheon opposite the deeply underrated Roach are solid leads but it's really Steffan Rhodri's gentle Colin and Mark Lewis Jones's bruised Eddie that steal the show for me and pushes Men Up somewhere really deep. I'm finished.

I can imagine the writers of this sittng in a meeting wondering what they can produce as an excuse to show couples engaged in sexual activity. The outcome? Men up, A one off (Thank god) drama about the discovery of the drug called viagra. This break through may have been a game changer for many long suffering men, but as a drama it was about as relavent as news that churchill lost the election after the war. Had it concentrated more about the process of the discovery and less about the patiants, even if it were to have just cut out the bonking in the bedroom scenes, it might have worked better. But the writers were only interested in something that would show as much titilation as possible thus failing to produce something that would qualify as being something intelegent.