★★★★★ 0/5

Angry Boys: early US reviews

First US reviews of Angry Boys veer from "finely etched characters" to "He thinks he's Peter Sellers."

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Angry Boys will premiere on HBO in the US at 10pm on New Year’s Day with a double episode.

So far the big guns (such as Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, New York Times, LA Times etc) haven’t reviewed the show -possibly due to the festive season.

But less-profile reviews have emerged:

Bloomberg:
Much more than he did with “Summer Heights High,” Lilley takes a risky approach to these stories, and viewers would be well-advised to hang tough through the homophobic slurs, racist epithets and crude jokes. Some of the characterizations push the edge of offense — Lilley substitutes L’s for R’s as Jen, the Japanese Mommie Dearest, and gives his black characters names like Schwayne and Lasqueesha. “Angry Boys” certainly isn’t above the shock value of political incorrectness, but its finely etched characters insinuate themselves into our affections. While American sitcoms like “The Office” and “Modern Family” shoehorn feel-good sentimentality into their weekly formulas, Lilley does something more extraordinary. His angry boys and demanding girls grow, week by week and joke by joke, into people you’ll miss when it’s all over.

Media Life:
The Australian actor-writer Chris Lilley does a fine job playing six different characters in a medley of mockumentary-style stories, but his scripts settle for easy shock value, followed by sticky patches of sentimentality. Viewers may appreciate the effort, but they won’t be entertained or amused…..Much of the dialogue is redolent of improv, a form in which flights of imagination are preferred to logic or consistency. A performer who came up with Jen’s gay marketing scheme spontaneously onstage would deserve applause, but that doesn’t mean it’s worth putting into a script. Other jokes are simply old. Like many rappers in many previous comedies, S.mouse talks “street” but is actually a rich kid. Jen’s Japanese accent dates back at least as far as World War II-era propaganda. One doesn’t have to be a slave to political correctness to wince a little when she says she moved her family to America for “a new rife.” As for Blake and Daniel, it’s possible that they’re speaking in precise re-creations of Australian regional accents, but their voices seem exactly the same to American ears. Gran neither sounds nor looks over 35. The overall effect is similar to that of Tracey Ullman’s various TV shows. Even when we’re impressed by the actor’s transformation, it feels more like a stunt than a performance. And Lilley is less talented than Ullman.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
Sunday’s second half-hour (10:30 p.m.) introduces a funnier character, S. Mouse, an American rapper with the hit song “Slap My Elbow.” Mouse tries to be hard but his father tattles on his earliest music influence: the Broadway music “Wicked.” It’s admirable the way the stories intertwine: Mouse records a music video in which he defecates on a police car, prompting Nathan to copy him and get in trouble Down Under.

In their podcast at HitFix
Daniel Fienberg said: “I don’t quite feel that these are well-enough differentiated characters for this to be worth the effort that it clearly is taking. I think that is my problem with this, that it’s not funny enough or smart enough to be worth it. Summer Heights High was a little bit broader….. there’s a serious undercurrent that intrigues me but I don’t know if it works…. There are things that if they were funnier you might think they were vaguely acceptable, but they’re not. So you kind of go ‘Ok, should Chris Lilley know better than to do blackface?’ And I don’t know what the answer to that is….. He thinks he’s Peter Sellers. The question of why he isn’t requires more unpacking I think.”

Alan Sepinwall said: “I don’t think that playing a whole host of characters in and of itself leads to entertainment. It’s what you do with those characters….. (The Dunt Brothers) were unpleasant, awkward and strange.”

21 Responses

  1. A gay magazine took Chris Lilley out to task for using the word “homo” in SSH and his response was, “Yeah, that’s what the kids say.”
    That makes it okay to use in a sketch comedy show?
    I fail to find the humor in all of the gay slurs, especially when an entire character in AB is based on his use of these slurs. And especially because I’m a 43 year old gay woman who’s 47 year old brother uses the work “_aggot” all the time to make fun of people (and he knows I’m gay).
    Other than that, I just don’t think Lilley’s characters are diverse…he sounds pretty much the same in most sketches (except for S.mouse). I find his shows rather annoying…yet I Did watch the entire SSH series on HBO…don’t know why. I won’t bother watching the rest of AB.
    I saw Lilley on a panel interview and he seems like a pleasant guy; I’m merely critisizing SSH and AB.

  3. David, I agree with you. Lilley does a good job at spoofing human behaviour- just look at SHH. Characters which were rich and lovable, yet had plenty of flaws and were at times real twits.
    In AB, however, it wasn’t as abundant. The Granny was a fantastic character- some of the jokes she make were hilarious like ‘Kerri-Anne’ the Guinea pig. Other characters like the surfer guy and S-Mouse fell flat because there wasn’t enough there after the stereotype humour had worn off to really expand the character. Ultimately viewers didn’t attach to most of the characters in AB as they had in SHH with Ja’mie and Mr. G, and the Samoan guy, all of which had abundant flaws but were still likeable and would keep viewers coming back for more.

  4. I really don’t get Chris Lilley full stop! Irritates me crazy as what people see in him?
    @Ronnie is right in a way, away from the lurvvies at the ABC, he is a nobody.
    I thought men dressing as women died out in the 70’s.
    Alas, Little Britain, and the gawd awful football shows, and Chris Lilley prove me wrong, sad to say.

    1. In fairness Lilley is a lot more chameleon and socially observant than simply “a man in a dress.” That said I was more a fan of SHH where the characters supplied more light and shade than the constant berating of AB characters. They wore me down. ABC deals should always ensure they can access and have input into material during production rather than simply being delivered a finished product.

  6. I think Gran was comedic genius. She had so many amazing lines, she had heart, she was making you laugh but also made you teary.

    The surfer – put it this way, I don’t remember his name – was fairly forgettable. He was too similar to the twins – the character felt like it got lost in the mix.

    Jen was great – he really captured that helicopter parent thing brilliantly!

    The twins were always funny but I don’t think there was enough to carry a series that long – would have been better if it was 6 eps, their story in particular went on too long.

    S.Mouse – there was a lot wrong and a lot right. It was pandering, pure and simple. Many Australians were annoyed to see Lilley tow the line to the Americans so much. It felt like it didn’t really fit the mix. But some of the song lyrics were fun, some bits – with the dad in particular – were great – especially in the first ep where he’s talking about the “ghetto” and his dad calls him out on it. But it was too much for audiences to deal with.

    However – I thought the series was a success. Certainly not as much as SHH which literally became part of the vernacular (I get “Puck you miss” a few times a month Still!!) – but it was still a lot better than a lot of the comedy being attempted this year!!

  8. Chris Lilley needs to be challenged to evolve much further. In Australian he is surrounded by sycophants at the ABC telling him he’s a genius – and he’s just not there yet. He has a long way to go. The brutality of the US market could help challenge him to get back to the seriousness and edginess of his work. I hope so anyway….

  9. For me, Angry Boys was definitely a lowlight in Chris’ career. Hopefully, it was just a brief segue down a strange, dark alley. I look forward to a return to SHH form with his next venture.

  10. My problem with Lilley is that while his observations are often true to life, he seems to think that in itself is funny, without thinking to add actual jokes. If there was more good local comedy on television, I doubt he’d get half the critical fawning that he does.

  11. What i did like about this show was that it pushed the boundaries. At times it worked and at times it failed but thank goodness for risk takers . We have enough bland.

  15. I’m catching the reruns on ABC2 where I am up to episode 8 and I have to say something just doesn’t sit right with me with Angry Boys unlike with Summer Heights High.

    I’m trying to pinpoint exactly the core of the issues is and I think it is that it is sitting in suck a awkward position of trying to be a drama and a comedy, without leaning to one or the other. Also most of the lines are miss timed in their humor or indeed seem like retreads

  16. I liked the show but I feel Lilley was making this more for the Americans than the Australians in that he was giving them what he ‘thought’ they would want to see. the US have plenty of offensive shows filled with sex, violence and coarse language so I don’t know why they are being such prudes with this one. Chris was just trying to up the anty, plus he was working with the americans this time and didn’t have them all Aussies which was a mistake. so maybe he gave the show a black character so they could relate or something. but perhaps the Americans will leave him alone and let him make his own show his way, I bet it was their idea to have an American character…. he just made it black. that character wasn’t funny, but the dad sure was!

  17. I think most of the critics hit the nail on the head. The whole show really did rely too much on shock value and like me, the americans saw right throught it. A tough but honest review.

  20. I don’t care what these critics say….I loved this show! I was entertained, I laughed and I was shocked. I’d gladly watch any of his future programs!!!!

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