ennor I can usually appreciate a good Poliakoff TV drama, but this one left me cold and even disinterested. I normally enjoy Damian Lewis's work as well, but his rather detached Paul left me not caring at all about what became of him; the quirky and enigmatic smile became irritating and more importantly, conveyed nothing at all. I felt that Jodhi May held the whole thing together; she seemed to have been written as the point-of-view character through whose eyes we see the ebb and flow of Paul's life, whilst at the same time we observe her rise and rise in the business world, something the self-sabotaging Paul could only envy.Poliakoff generally sets his stories against a backdrop of historical social and political change. In 'Friends & Crocodiles' the social change covers the time from the hedonistic 1980's to the bursting of the dot com bubble. For me, I felt somewhat irrelevant as a viewer as the narrative dipped in and out of events in time. I believe that Poliakoff was too ambitious in attempting to create a cohesive story covering this time span in only 110 minutes of screen time. The reasons for the shortness of story-telling time may well have been financial - or whatever - but for me, this movie just didn't work, and in the end I didn't care what happened to any of the characters.I really, really love Stephen Poliakoff's work, but I hope 'Friends & Crocodiles' remains the sole exception.

Robert_Woodward I watched the DVD of this film hot on the heels of catching Poliakoff's similarly excellent 'Capturing Mary.'Here the range of sets and costumes are more lavish still with Damian Lewis and Jodhi May in the lead roles traversing a multitude of outfits and hairstyles as the story traverses three decades of British working life, capturing the ebbing and flowing spirits of the age in two evidently archetypal characters, both of whom are nonetheless developed in a rounded and sympathetic way and thus come across as real individuals.The supporting cast is also exceptionally strong, portraying a breadth of distinctive characters who each help to paint in details of this era, from politicians whose personal lives brim with potential scandal to gifted children who grow up without channelling their promise in any direction.I look forward eagerly to seeing more of Poliakoff's work.

sirfire Finally a movie that doesn't spell it out in plane words so the intelligent can watch without feeling that the director was being condescending, while it has it flaws it leaves you coming to your own conclusions and that seems to be the problem with other reviews. I can honestly say due to meeting highly intelligent people that they can be self destructive to a point where they are about to touch infinite success only to destroy it with their own hands. This to me was the point of the whole story and while some of the business processes are clearly flawed if you can get over the details you can see how the story makes its point. The acting was good (especially Damian Lewis and Jodhi May) however a lot more could have been done to expand the characters around them so that the story was smoother or more understanding, the problem is that the movie would be too long and if it made you feel uncomfortable it wouldn't have made a difference. I guess you need to have experienced something similar to relate to this story perhaps just friends who you meet every now and then.The Metaphor of the crocodile was obvious to some but clearly missed by many to explain the story and i guess I'm happy that this is the case ;) Worth watching sure it has flaws and if you want a thinking movie that explores the eighties and nineties and have a friend who is on the road to self destruction you will perhaps even understand it.

stew-43 Friends and Crocodiles follows the career of Paul, a brilliant entrepreneur who has made his fortune from retail. As well as being talented, he is also feckless and unstable. We open in 1981, when Paul is the owner of a beautiful country house set in a vast estate (echoes of Richard Branson's purchase of The Manor near Oxford a few years earlier). We then follow Paul's volatile career, which becomes intertwined with that of Lizzie, a talented manager, whom he recruits as his PA from a local estate agent. She brings order to the chaos of the house, which Paul has filled with an assortment of freaks who are all expecting to make it big in something. Lizzie storms out of his employment after a stunt at one of Paul's parties puts people in danger and as the years progress their paths cross at intervals, their relationship slowly mutating into one of grudging mutual respect. Despite the chaos he creates around him, it is his judgement that she ends up respecting, against the entrenched wisdom of the whole business establishment.The film is a sharp, accurate and very involving tour of Britain over the last quarter century, through the high noon of Thatcherism, the wobbling confidence of the Major years, the dot com boom and the subsequent meltdown, through to the present. The lunacies, the technologies, the pain and the silliness. Maybe you had to live through it and suffer with it for Friends and Crocodiles to work. But even without that it's a vision very difficult to ignore.Nowhere on television have I seen colour used as it is here. Almost every shot is a work of art, which of course makes it sound pretentious. It isn't pretentious on screen -- just a succession of startling, highly unusual and often very beautiful images. In some ways reminiscent of Fellini's movies, but more rooted in the everyday.Underpinning it are the expert performances of Damian Lewis as Paul and Jodhi May as Lizzie, which are crisp, sharp and utterly believable.