Sam Pinkett (Matthew Bainton) is an urban planning and noise control consultant for Bracknell City Council in Berkshire. Sam hates his job anyway, and then there’s his ex-girlfriend Lizzie (Sarah Solemany), who works on the same county council, has been promoted to department head and is now Sam’s boss.
One morning, walking from a rented apartment to work, Sam witnessed a car accident on the road. The driver of the car was injured and Sam called paramedics and the police.
The driver was driven away, and Sam was just about to walk back to work, when suddenly the phone rang, lying on the side of the road. Pinkett thought that the phone had been dropped by the same driver who had just been driven away, he answered the call, and there the voice of a man speaking with a strong Asian accent said that if he, Stevens, did not deliver the money by five o’clock, then his wife would die . Sam’s attempts to explain that he was not Stevens at all led to nothing, the man simply hung up.
Pinkett showed up for work and began to think about what to do with all this. The voice on the phone at the first call categorically demanded not to contact the police, otherwise the woman would die. And the phone kept ringing, and voice messages kept coming in.
Sam told about the incident to a certain Phil Bourne (James Corden), who works in the council building as a mail carrier. Phil is thirty-one years old, unmarried, lives with his mom and loves to watch all sorts of action movies about super agents and bad guys.
Phil was delighted with Pinkett’s story. He said that only the two of them – an office plankton and a chubby postman – could save a woman from certain death, and that such a chance to participate in a real adventure falls only once in a lifetime.
Friends go to the hospital to find the same injured Stevens. However, it turns out that the man in the car is not Stevens at all and is not married.
What to do next, Sam and Phil do not know, but then they are kidnapped by the henchmen of the real Mr. Stevens, after which a terrible mess will start, in which they will be involved: Mr. Stevens (Nick Moran) and his very hot-tempered wife Scarlett (Emilia Fox), Chinese crime under the leadership of Lionel Lao (Benedict Wong), a corrupt bigwig from the city government, United Statesn oligarch Marat Milankovich (Karel Roden), United Statesn bandits and the British secret service Mi-5.
***
The creators of the series (show runners) are Matthew Baynton and James Corden. They are the authors of the script together with Tom Basden. The director is Jim Field Smith (who, by the way, was one of the four directors of the good series “Episodes”).
The plot of the show is excellent. The intrigue throughout the first season spins more and more famously, while the threads of the story are connected very neatly, and you don’t get confused at all in the newly emerging characters, everything is very well thought out here.
Matthew Baynton plays a kind of dull and weak-tempered aunt, who was exposed by a friend for spinelessness, by chance involved in a whole cycle of events, where circumstances all the time force him to make decisions and act. The character is great, I really like it.
James Corden has a completely chic type: a complete (in every sense) loser who perceives everything that happens as a game, uttering stereotypical phrases from super-spy films, while not forgetting to eat even during terrible troubles that bring him and Sam.
There are also several colorful minor characters with whom funny episodes are associated. Cool special agent Walker performed by Dougray Scott and the scene of his introduction to these two klutzes. Operetta Chinese crime Lao in as always cool performance by Benedict Wong. A slightly buffoonish United Statesn oligarch played by Karel Rodin: this actor usually plays such roles too seriously, but here the oligarch is scripted cool, and Rodin fits into the style of the series well.
The charming Sarah Solemani very nicely played Lizzy, who is forced to be the boss of her ex-boyfriend and who looks with great surprise at how this guy suddenly began to change very dramatically.
I watched the first season with great pleasure, literally without stopping. An excellent combination of famously twisted plot with good humor, a couple of main characters are cheerful and funny, secondary characters are also good, staged very worthy. I’m glad I didn’t miss this episode.
In the first season, the story was completely finished, and, apparently, the continuation was not originally planned.
However, for some reason, they also filmed the second season, where there are only two hour-long episodes. There, the main characters end up in America, end up in jail, and… I didn’t even finish watching the first episode. There were clearly no interesting ideas, there is an unsuccessful, in my opinion, attempt to imitate the first season, all the British flavor disappeared in America, and with prison such a purely American raspberry spread began, which is already higher than the roof for me in American TV shows that I don’t began to look further. The characters have become very boring, especially Sam, and even the always funny Corden does not save this swamp much.
Therefore, in my opinion, the second season is better not to watch, so as not to spoil the impression of an excellent first season.
PS “The skinny hobbit and the male version of Claire Balding” – that’s what Scarlett called them in the series. Claire Balding is a famous British TV presenter, here she is.
Wrong Boys / The Wrong Mans serie meaning
Director: Matthew Baynton, James Corden Cast: Matthew Baynton, James Corden, Sara Solemany, Don French, Tom Basden, Paul Cowley, Jordan Long, Alec Uthoff, Emilia Fox, David Calder, Benedict Wong, Dougray Scott, Nick Moran, Karel Rodin
Series, UK, 2013, 29 min. 2 seasons: 6 episodes of 30 minutes and 2 episodes of 60 minutes