What makes it different from others?

Strong and Moving!

Sadly Over-hyped

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

While looking and feeling like big production TV from the BBC the central question marks are really the pivot points of Friends and Crocodiles.Set initially in the a multi-millionaire's world of bizarre parties and meaningless hedonism it is a timeless journey into one man and one woman's counterbalancing act. He wild. She composed. He unorganized. She overly so etc;The Eighties in Britain were a time of an implosion of time and security, and rapidly followed by immense greed. On the flip-side of this was a vast sub-culture spawned by the rejection or denial of access to the success of Thatcherite policies.But this is not a film about politics, or even economics, and it has a strong surreal edge to it - it is definitely worth viewing for the juxtaposition between the work ethic - protestant, bourgeois, uptight - and the new entrepreneur - free-wheeling, charismatic, and mesmerizing.Largely successful Poliakoff writes a great visual script and directs in sweeping tranches of panoramic vistas - this is largely a film based on ken Russell's sensibilities of what make film work - it is bold, and fun, but for my taste at the end of the day - a bit like the Eighties themselves - had loads of style but the substance is obscure...It works best in the unreal world of parties and we thought it fell apart when the parties ended. Brilliant first half. Weaker second.The rise and fall and redemption are too commonplace - here the acting should have had power rather than a footnote to the parties - and we were left wondering if,like the Eighties, it was all a bad hangover and a fitful night.

Being one of Thatcher's children myself, whose working life began with the start of her premiership, I found this a fascinatingly photogenic look at this era. I don't remember the time as quite so pretty, but I do remember the disparity between the rich and the poor, which I think is part of the intention here. I enjoyed the acting, but at the beginning found Paul too annoying and unsympathetic as a character, but I warmed to him by the end, especially as Damian Lewis portrays his hippy phase beautifully. Jodhi May was also excellent. I recognised the big company ethos; consultants, dot-com boom, out with the old and thought that was very legitimate- think Marconi, fellow Brits- living down the road from its Head Office I did rather cringe as the big beast was destroyed. All in all I feel this was a rewarding piece to watch and definitely worthy of further study, so have bought the DVD!

I enjoyed Friends and Crocodiles and strongly suggest viewing it more than once. More nuances are then perceptible which fleshes out the story line that otherwise is convoluted and can be confusing. Both Paul and Lizzie demonstrate an extreme level of self control, although each of a different nature and each exhibited in vastly different ways. Lewis and May are exceptionally well suited for those two roles and do an excellent job of keeping the viewer focused on their personalities and the theme, rather than have attention wander off on other characters or subplots. The interplay between the two of them can easily be viewed as signifying human interaction in areas other than the business world.

and already we have a potential contender for TV drama of the year. Here was a two-hour one-off piece of work that created for so many people a world that they all knew all too well, yet imbibed it with a freshness and a vitality that made it utterly irresistible. When watching this piece, it is impossible not to think of the Great Gatsby and Bonfire of the Vanities. Like this, they were tales of luxury and excess, whilst around them (if they bothered to look hard enough) stood poverty and despair. Paul is an irresponsible self-made young millionaire a and a man of incredible potential. Lizzie is a dour young career woman of stoic determination and an incredible aptitude for organisation. It is clear from this that when the former hirers the latter as a secretary in order to fulfil all his grand ideas, that the relationship between the two is never going to be totally cosy. And so it proves over their respective ups and downs through 25 years of British urban life. Whether or not it is mainly about those two or the world around them depends on your point of view. It could simply be a basic drama about a very mismatched couple, but then that would not be very original. Instead, they become a conduit for Poliakoff to place his views about us since Thatcher. About our virtues, our vices, and - in all walks of life - our excesses. Utterly essential.