Inside Men

Right up front I should tell you that 'Inside Men' plays with time. It begins in 'the present' then moves back and forth between the now and the past. Things / events we experience in the now get us leaning one way, events in the past get us leaning another. The series-makers' hope must have been that at a certain point between the present and the distant past, all would make sense to the viewer. And it does. But by then - at least in my opinion - the viewer is so tired of leaning that he or she no longer cares. And during the series' fourth and final episode my lack of caring was monumental.

Steven Mackintosh as the 'hero' / 'anti hero' is quite good. His is a face we can care about, root for, have hopes for. Nicola Walker plays John's never-suspecting wife. Ashley Walters and Warren Brown play employees of John's; the three of them possibly involved with a scheme to rob a 'cash depot' (where banks' cash is distributed) of 150 million British Pounds. Or possibly they are not involved. Or maybe just one of them. Or two? The answer to this, the "who' of this mystery, is what keeps the story going.

Until that final fourth episode. Which is really too bad.

I stumbled upon this series by chance to be honest and hence my expectations were not high. I figured the cinematography would be interesting given it is a BBC production so I thought "Why not?!"

While it is too early to give a concrete review, having watched the first 2 episodes just leaves one yearning for more. The storyline at first glance seems simple enough..3 employees staging a heist of a lumpsum of cash. The aftermath is what unravels as the core of this series, with the use of timely back-flashes to give the viewer a feel of what transpired before. The delivery of suspense, and drama is excellent along with the character choices, played marvellously by Steve Mackintosh (I only remember as the weed seller in Guy Ritchie's "lock, Stock and Two Smokin' Barrels") as the lead. The character development doesn't seem rushed and the sub-plots and dialogue make sense - which is a far cry from recent suspense/thriller/drama productions which are all effects and zero punch.

For those that are intrigued by heists and the what they entail along with the drama revolving around each character, this one's definitely for you. Edge of the seat stuff.

Inside Men is the kind of antihero drama that's become so trendy lately boiled down to its essentials in four hours of drama. Steve Mackinotsh gives a great performance as the central character, who doesn't so much transform from nebbish bank manager to near-sociopathic bank robber as reveal the ruthless criminal that was always hidden beneath the benign bourgeois facade -- and that might be beneath our benign bourgeois facades too.

Ashley Waters, Warren Brown and Nicola Walker also give great supporting performances, and what helps them out is a script that makes their characters every bit as interesting as Mackintosh's. These characters are the starring roles in their own lives, and we get enough of these lives (in particular a very real depiction of working-class British life) to be interested in them. Inside Men occasionally uses melodrama in place of backstory (Chris's mother springs to mind), but for the most part the time spent in these worlds is rewarding.

Some other narrative choices are less successful. The flash-forward structure, while striking at first, quickly becomes burdensome and removes a lot of narrative tension from the events in the past. In the last episode in particular the series seems to be unable to figure out what to do with the plot. And even though a lot about Inside Men is well-done, I always found myself wondering a bit what the point was. As I said above, this is a condensed version of a show like Breaking Bad, but condensation often takes out the flavour, and what we have is a narrative we've seen done better before.

It's perhaps unfair to compare Inside Men to all previous shows with this narrative trajectory, which include some of the best TV shows ever. It's good enough to stand on its own. But in the end it comes off as just a well-executed crime story. If that sounds up your alley, give this one a shot.

English crime dramas on the BBC tend to be good, so when I spotted the first episode on iPlayer I decided that I'd watch the first episode and take it from there.

I think I was hooked within 15 minutes, the pace was just right, rapid in places agonizing (in a good way...) in others. The way the story unfolds is especially attractive in that almost until the final scene you aren't quite sure of what will happen, even though it might have felt that after the first episode you already knew the entire plot.

The actors involved all gave first rate performances, all of them were believable and possibly more importantly, very familiar, at least on the surface. The way personalities change as the plot progresses (if not in episode order..) is very well done.

Lastly, the whole thing was utterly believable, everything from the methodologies and insecurities portrayed through to the social situations and environment were spot on.

I would recommend it to anyone who is into the genre and probably anyone who has the time to sit down and watch the whole lot. In fact the worst part of watching the four episodes that make up the whole was waiting for the next one to be aired.

This series really captivated me from very beginning. Acting, casting, character development, it had everything I've come to love and appreciate from British drama. I couldn't wait to recommend this to everyone I knew. Then the finale. OMG, did they fire all the writers after episode 3 and start over? I couldn't wait to see how this was gonna end. What a disappointment. Had to google it to understand exactly what I'd just watched. What a waste of really good acting! I gave this a 6 just because of the acting, on the end I really felt cheated. It came so close to greatness but the ending ruined it. Too bad.