Customer Reviews

Friends & Crocodiles

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Poliakoff's films are known for focusing on a slice of British life at a point in time. In "Gideon's Daughter" he captured the emptiness of celebrity culture, when it had reached unheard of heights after Princess Diana's death. In "Almost Strangers", the topic was family relationships, and the obsession with genealogy--digging to discover famous relations. In "Friends and Crocodiles" Poliakoff explores wprk relationships and how British industry and work practices have changed over the past 30 years. As he states, we spend the vast majority of our lives at work. Men and women develop work relationships that are almost like marriages, but lack the love connection.

"Friends and Crocodiles" is an interesting portrayal of such a relationship: A brilliant but non-conformist, wealthy, Gatsby-like figure, Paul, is able to identify areas of future economic growth, but is too disorganized and flawed to bring them to fruition. He hires a personal assistant who is gifted in organization and ability, but the two are unable to function together. "Crocodiles" refers to one of Paul's ideas, that there is something innate within crocodiles that must hold the secret to life. It is the only species to have survived intact from the time of the dinosaurs and has the ability to self-heal wounds.

Ironically, though Poliakoff pokes fun at venture capitalists and their ideas for making money, in fact in the film, what might have looked absurd 8 years ago when the film was probably written, today is actually happening, e.g. electronic book readers (Kindle), windmill energy, and 3-D entertainment, to cite just a few.

Poliakoff shows how the advent of computers replacing typewriters revolutionized business practices that were in effect for fifty years. He also accurately targets the telecommunications industry which went wild, and ultimately bankrupted multiple companies, causing the loss of thousands of jobs, stocks, pensions etc. on both sides of the Atlantic.

Poliakoff is a "thinking" person's director/writer. His films are always profound on one level, but highly entertaining on every level.

It is about a power struggle between a rich young businessman and his secretary. He is chaotic and she an organizational wonder but they find out that their styles and personalites clash. They end up driving each other apart only to be drown again and again to each other. A wonderful story.

This movie was definitely British, or European, not a typical U.S. script. It was good, Damian Lewis was really good. The story was similar to The Great Gatsby as was advertized. If you like Damian Lewis the movie is worth viewing. It is for mature audiences for sure, and it is worth watching.

Damien Lewis and Jodhi May are two of the best -- and most underrated -- British actors you can find in the entertainment biz. And their talents are on glorious display in "Friends and Crocodiles," a slow study of British society's changes throughout the 1980s and 1990s, as well as of one orderly ambitious woman and an eccentric man.

Lizzy Thomas (May) is suddenly approached by Paul Reynolds (Lewis), a wealthy, whimsical real-estate emperor who wants her as his secretary. At first she's enthralled by his brilliant ideas, but soon she realizes that he enjoys chaos and mayhem -- and after a dangerous stunt at a party, she quits his employ.

Over the years, Lizzie and Paul encounter each other periodically -- his real-estate empire crumbles to a tiny farm and a hippie-style polyamorous family, while she marries and becomes a wealthy CEO at a massive company. But as Lizzie's company begins to implode, she begins to reexamine what she truly thinks of Paul.

The whole point of "Friends and Crocodiles" seems to be that inspired people need a little discipline, and disciplined people need a little inspiration. It's not a movie for everyone, since it's a rather slow-moving slice-of-life movie that basically charts the ups and downs of Lizzie and Paul's respective lives.

But what really makes it shine is May and Lewis -- he's excellent as a "rock star" wealthy man whose life slowly crumbles away, and May is brilliant as an everyday woman whose success throws her into a spiderweb of moral dilemmas. They have powerful chemistry, and Stephen Poliakoff carefully sketches how both of them become wiser and learn that they both need a little of the other.

And Poliakoff explores both sides of the coin, drifting from opulent mansions to dung-smeared farms, from marble mausoleums to midnight bonfires. And he takes an interesting look at how once-ridiculous ideas are now everyday realities -- ebook readers, Barnes&Noble-style coffee/bookstores, 3-D, and clean power from windmills.

"Friends and Crocodiles" is an intriguing movie, but what tips it over the top is the performances by Jodhi May and Damien Lewis. A solid if slow-moving story.

This is really about one director's interpretation of the social climate and trend that changed Britain in the 80s and 90s. Maybe it is heavy handed and the acting might not be great at times, but that is besides the point. If you like modern history, social trends and BBC-style television, you will like this DVD.

Also from the same director:
"Shooting the Past" is the author's best drama (*****). The director's "Gideon's Daughter" deals with the 90s, but it is more about a father-daugher relationship (****). "The Lost Price" is decent drama (****).

When Stephen Poliakoff, the prolific British screenwriter
and director, is at his best, he has few peers. But like
Woody Allen, he is too prolific and apparently has no
friends to tell him NOT to release some new creation
of his, and he doesn't seem to lack for funding either.
Hence, on the heels of his BBC gem, THE LAST PRINCE,
he has produced two new movies, one of them so awful
that I shall not even bother with the other.
In a 2006 TV-movie, FRIENDS AND CROCODILES, he spent
a small fortune to mount a lavish production of an
incoherent story about an eccentric American (played
by Damiel Lewis) who has somehow made a fortune in
England and bought a lavish estate. One day he impulsively
hires as his personal assistant a young woman (Jodhi May)
whom he has seen a few times strolling at the perimeter
of his property. He tells her he wants her to organize
his voluminous creative files, but soon after she does
so, he throws a party to which he invites low-lifes and vandals
who trash his property and thoroughly destroy all the
work she has done for him. She quits, of course, but
years later, after a chance encounter, she meets him and
recommends him for a high-paying job as a creative con-
sultant in the company she works for, and he repeats the same
self-destructive pattern. Despite the opulence of the
production, none of this makes any sense-- at most, the
script should have been labelled "rough notes for a future
screenplay." Despite the impressive cast for his
sequel movie, GIDEON'S DAUGHTER, including Bill
Nighy, Miranda Richardson and Robert Lindsay, I shall
abstain.

This movie is worth seeing just to witness Damien Lewis' brilliance!
I fell in love with him through this Brit flick.

Little of this makes sense, and the female lead's constant anger towards the rich American is very one-note and not supported by the script. The sets are opulent and fun to look at. I guess this is some kind of social commentary on British society, but I didn't really get it, overall. It's a kind of wizard-of-oz tale, and we are never quite convinced of why Damian Lewis is such a genius at making money. At least there's some nudity to carry it through. Watch it if you can rent or borrow it.

Having fallen desperately in love with Damian Lewis in NBC's "Life" this season (before it was cut short by the writers' strike) I set out to find everything else he'd done (including "Band of Brothers"). Mostly I wanted to see him working in his own native UK English. I was unfamiliar with writer/director Poliakoff's work. Does he always SO over-reach? Try to tell the story of Thatcher and Blair's roller-coaster economies through a pair of characters who aren't even in love, just drawn together by thoroughly conflicting economic principles? Lewis kept my eyes on him at all times. However, the actress in no way possesses the innate magnetism, suggestion of intellectual/economic brilliance, to make her convincing as someone he'd reach out to either as his possible equal or an amusing foil.