Angry Boys

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!

Pure dark humor. For those who are easily offended, please excuse yourself from viewing. Crude, rude, absolutely hilarious!

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!)

What i love about all of Chris's shows is that they are enhanced by watching the other shows. Summer heights high is better after watching We can be heroes etc.

With angry boys you can see Liley, using the trust of the TV station and money to full extent. The series begins with 2 story lines. Gran and Nathan and Daniel (we can be heroes). and it starts of quite small but completely brilliantly, with the same charm of SHH and WCBH. Then after 1 it just gets better and better. They are 6 episodes so far, each more epic than the last.

A must see, especially for Lilly's fans i can see this turning into Lilly's masterpiece as we have a 12 episode series.