Except for the lavish party scenes, everything about this movie is half-baked. Based on the reviews, I gather it was meant to be a satire on avarice, or maybe capitalism, but it's like smoke without a fire. Or a crocodile without teeth.
The characters never come to life, and most are unnecessary, including Robert Lindsay and Eddie Marsan, whose talents should never be wasted. Only two people matter: the Gatsby-like magnate Paul Reynolds (Damian Lewis), who typically just hangs out and throws parties at his estate, and Lizzie Thomas (Jodhi May), whom he hires as a secretary/nag. She dutifully organizes and nags, but quits after calling the police to restore order when he hires thugs to trash one of his parties, to liven things up. They part as enemies, and his fortunes fall while she rises to become a captain of industry. She speaks of him as her mentor, which is fair enough, I guess, because she doesn't show any more signs of financial wizardry than he does.
Stephen Poliakoff, who pulled off this lukewarm mess, clearly has the oomph to get the funding, which had to be considerable. It would be interesting to know what his elevator pitch was, because I truly don't know what he was trying to say and all the superfluous female nudity suggests the Emperor's new clothes. There's a passing reference to "she" wanting 20 years in office. So, Margaret Thatcher is being satirized? In one sequence, Patrick Malahide dismantles a giant manufacturing company to switch to tech, which leads to ruin, and in another Paul presents an idea that he worked on for five months to venture capitalists: bookstores with cafés. So, anti-tech?
Poliakoff's Paul did have one interesting idea, which is why he kept a dwarf crocodile: crocodiles did indeed survive the extinction that killed dinosaurs, and biotech has taken an interest in their remarkable resilience. As I write in early 2024, a crocodile protein called defensin (CpoBD13), similar to a human protein, is being actively investigated as an antifungal agent.
The characters never come to life, and most are unnecessary, including Robert Lindsay and Eddie Marsan, whose talents should never be wasted. Only two people matter: the Gatsby-like magnate Paul Reynolds (Damian Lewis), who typically just hangs out and throws parties at his estate, and Lizzie Thomas (Jodhi May), whom he hires as a secretary/nag. She dutifully organizes and nags, but quits after calling the police to restore order when he hires thugs to trash one of his parties, to liven things up. They part as enemies, and his fortunes fall while she rises to become a captain of industry. She speaks of him as her mentor, which is fair enough, I guess, because she doesn't show any more signs of financial wizardry than he does.
Stephen Poliakoff, who pulled off this lukewarm mess, clearly has the oomph to get the funding, which had to be considerable. It would be interesting to know what his elevator pitch was, because I truly don't know what he was trying to say and all the superfluous female nudity suggests the Emperor's new clothes. There's a passing reference to "she" wanting 20 years in office. So, Margaret Thatcher is being satirized? In one sequence, Patrick Malahide dismantles a giant manufacturing company to switch to tech, which leads to ruin, and in another Paul presents an idea that he worked on for five months to venture capitalists: bookstores with cafés. So, anti-tech?
Poliakoff's Paul did have one interesting idea, which is why he kept a dwarf crocodile: crocodiles did indeed survive the extinction that killed dinosaurs, and biotech has taken an interest in their remarkable resilience. As I write in early 2024, a crocodile protein called defensin (CpoBD13), similar to a human protein, is being actively investigated as an antifungal agent.