The Mystery of Men

The Mystery of Men is a strange little piece that will have done little to explain the mystery - or even which particular mystery the title refers to. The comedy is at times hilarious, at others so black as to be distinctly uncomfortable - and the ending was just plain strange.

The story concerns three drinking partners, at a pub named the Oasis of Sanity. Vernon (Warren Clarke) is a depressive English teacher, going through the motions of life with little notion as to why. Julian (Neil Pearson) is the boss of a struggling regional advertising agency, while Oscar (Robert Daws) is a successful sales executive. Colin (Nick Berry) is the landlord of the pub.

Colin suggests a bizarre scheme - they all take out life insurance, with the others as beneficiaries, so that whoever lives the longest, gets rich. They all go in for this, even Vernon - a depressive, overweight, heavy-smoking drinker.

The programme then follows the unbelievable sequence of events that follows on from this. Without revealing any of the plot, the incidents involve adultery, deceit, three broken marriages, head injuries and a broken leg, a bankruptcy, serious burns to one protagonist, the destruction of the pub and finally a particularly gruesome death.

The humour varies between comical - the reaction of Vernon to the attempts by a student to seduce him - and thoroughly black, including the closing eulogy by the vicar at the funeral of the dead man. Occasionally uncomfortable, so long as your sense of humour veers to the darker end of the spectrum, this is an engaging way to pass 90 minutes.

I'ts a shame that ITV haven't produced a DVD of this film. It is a personal favourite of my wife and I. The characters are all 'likeable' in strange and differing ways. Warren Clarke's Vernon (or Ver - NON) as Oscar refers to him, is truly miserable virtually throughout the entire film but is strangely likeable. Neil Pearson's Julian (Oscar - Julie-ANN) is wonderfully dry-witted and sarcastic, struggling to persuade his wife to stop spending. Oscar (Robert Daws) is probably the most comically likeable of the three pub 'customers' and his constant jibing of his compatriotes is great - his interaction with his son is also entertaing. Perhaps the most 'wooden' character is the pub landlord, Colin, (Oscar -- 'Col-LEEN') played by Nick Berry..

As previously mentioned, the comedy is rather black but the film wouldn't 'work' if it was less-so.