Angry Boys V.F.

So, I often run out of TV to watch and I enjoy acting and especially comedy. When I first watched "It's always Sunny in Philadelphia," I thought it sucked, now its my favorite. This show is one of those. You won't like it at first because you really don't get it, but if you give it a chance you will love it. It like always sunny, is a show that will spread through word of mouth, so HBO give it some time. It progressively got better. The chocolate-face aka Smouse was a great idea, not to many people paint themselves black and it's funny, and his remarks are priceless..."My new album" and so on. The chinawoman also great. Gram is however the best character, you almost feel like she is a real granny lol. If you have yet to give this show a chance go 4 episodes deep and you'll start to get into it. It is silly, but shows potential for another good HBO comedy so hopefully they'll get a 2nd season. I reckon it will do well mate!

After initial disappointment I found this series to hit something above the normal. As the stories developed I realised I was not watching Lilley but watching entirely authentic characters. He is a great actor, writer and commenter on society. The characters are like from a modern Ibsen play; good characters but not necessarily of good character. As the narratives slowly piece together (and it is a very gradual process) something emerged for me that was close to the sublime; a humanity that is more important than the comedic values, a sincerity that is more valuable than the dramatic qualities and a genuine compassion for the characters. I am so happy I stayed with it and watched the series in it's entirety. The emotional gratification in the latter episodes had me overwhelmed at times.

As a longtime fan of Chris Lilley's work (I loved We Can Be Heroes and Summer Heights High for their satirical social commentary on Australian society) I was eagerly anticipating his 3rd series, Angry Boys. After 4 long years of patiently waiting, what I got instead was nothing but a crude and lowbrow toilet humour filled series completely devoid of what made Chris Lilley so funny in the first place.

None of the characters have any likable, redeeming qualities, except for maybe Gran. The Dunt twins Daniel and Nathan Sims from We Can Be Heroes are no longer the funny teenagers we originally loved. Instead, they're just foul-mouthed, vile and gross. Normally I don't mind this style of humour if it has a point behind it but here it's just pointless and doesn't add up to anything. Their grandmother, Ruth "Gran" Sims is just as foul-mouthed as her grandsons but she is slightly more likable than the rest of the characters due to her job of being a prison officer at a juvenile hall, where she acts as a mother figure to the young inmates. Blake Oakfield, a surfer and a member of a Bra Boys-esque gang, is just plain boring. Every time one of his segments finished, I failed to even remember any remotely humorous or memorable moment from them.

But perhaps the worst characters of all were S.Mouse and Jen Okazaki. S.Mouse is supposed to be a pop rapper from Los Angeles, California but Chris Lilley clearly lacks the knowledge of any Rap/Hip-Hop culture and has just seemingly based S.Mouse on some Soulja Boy style music videos he's seen on Channel V years ago. All of S.Mouse's jokes fall flat and make you cringe (not in the humorous way intended though). Jen Okazaki, a Japanese mother of her skateboarding son, has all of her segments based around a single one-joke premise; Her son is a gay skateboarder (even though in reality he is straight) and she is reaping the benefits of it whether he likes it or not. While at first this is mildly amusing, this premise is drawn out over 12 episodes and it gets so annoying and unfunny that by the end of it you just don't care for it anymore.

In conclusion, Angry Boys is a big disappointment from the once hilarious Chris Lilley. It had so much potential to be just as hilarious as his previous two series but it is neither memorable nor interesting. If you want to see Chris Lilley at his best, pop in the DVD of We Can Be Heroes or Summer Heights High. But if you want to see him at his worst, just watch Angry Boys to see what I mean.

Angry Boys is a hugely ambitious new series from Chris Lilley – and one that I feel has been misunderstood by some viewers. While not as consistently funny as his previous shows, I found this to be the most engaging – with well drawn characters who you grow to care about more and more as the series progresses. Even though there were only a handful of hilarious moments per episode, I still felt that the series was solidly entertaining – incorporating moments of obscurity, profanity, profundity and tragedy – but while also managing to be funny and uplifting.

Some have criticised the amount of characters that Lilley brings to the screen in this series, but I never considered this aspect of the show to be excessive. Across 12 episodes, 6 characters felt like the right amount – and not every character is featured in every episode. Furthermore, the plots were often interwoven – both physically and thematically. Others have criticised the appearance of the characters – suggesting that they are not believable, or that they look too much like Lilley. However, this was never an issue for me. Using Gran as an example, the mannerisms, the attitude and the voice were more than enough for me to feel that she was her own character. I actually consider the understated physical differentiation between each character to be a huge triumph – demonstrating Lilley's great skill as an actor, while immersing the viewer into a strange Being John Malkovich esque parallel universe where all of the main characters look exactly the same.

Overall, I feel that Angry Boys is an accomplished series, but perhaps not one that will benefit from repeated viewings to quite the same extent as his previous shows. Nonetheless, I feel that it is further proof of Chris Lilley's diverse range of talents – and I for one cannot wait to see what he does next.

(Can't finish the review without giving a special mention to Jen Okazaki - Chris' most appalling and hilarious creation to date!)

Where Summer Heights High contained heart, nuance and characters you loved and pulled for (while cringing at them at the same time) this contains very little of that. Sad to say. I think this guy has shown flashes of genius, but in Angry Boys, Lilley seems to settle for shock value over strong and deep characters. Granted, I've only watched two episodes, but where We Can be Heroes and Summer Heights High seemed to jump off the screen with honesty and made one truly feel for Jonah, Jaime and Mr. G--Angry Boys grabs a tiny laugh here and there and doesn't lead anywhere except towards base and juvenile. Maybe this is what Chris was going for, but I have to say that--he is capable of better than this.