The second series of Mad Dogs begins unsurprisingly where the first series ended, but with a twist. The four episode programme was watchable because of the setting on a hot arid Spanish Island as four male friends whose lives are in various forms of dissatisfaction and decline accept the invitation to meet up again for the first time in yonks at the isolated villa of a fifth who has made his fortune in property and who at one point says he is leaving the villa to the four so they can enjoy for the rest of their lives. It emerges he needs to validate his life and for protection and help.
Although he appears well set up it is quickly evident that he is involved in a drug based crime gangs and corrupt police officers which leads to “borrowing” a boat and finding themselves in the possession of three million euros from the drug trade. As they become caught up in violence and a deaths they also encounter a corrupt police woman engage in ex marital or casual sex and admit that their lives are not as they like to present to others. The TV series is not to confused by the Robert Muchamore crime drama Mad Dogs which is also about the world of Drugs but in that instance two gangs fighting out a Turf War
The mini series works because of the interactions between Philip Glennister as Quinn, Mark Warren as Rick, John Simms as Baxter and Max Beasley as Woody who were once boys out chasing girls and drinking on weekend nights but have since gone their separate ways and now attracted to changing their lives albeit involving stealing money from a dreadful trade and which is something they are inept at. They want to be fully in control of their lives once more when the point of the first series as becomes apparent in the second is that they are not only being manipulated by others but have become no more than puppets whichever turn they take at junctions they encounter and where they always make the worst possible choice.
As the first series ended the four have been given the opportunity to get off the island and go home leaving their host to his fate. They return to find their friend dying and in order to survive themselves they run over the corrupt male detective and shoot the corrupt policewoman. The only thing which appears to make the return worthwhile is that they have acquired the three million and the closed safe holding their mobile phones which would identify them to the authorities and the criminals in pursuit, they appear to have got away to a new life
In the panic to get away they fail to check that they are getting on the right ferry and instead of crossing to the mainland at Barcelona they find themselves on the party Island of Ibiza.
Amazingly although this appears to be the height of the summer season they are able to get a beach front apartment where they decide to try and launder some of the money as the local casino. Admittedly I have only engaged in Greek Island hoping on foot ferry and organised coach and in Spain taking local boats to isolated beaches but the notion of being able to drive on to the wrong ferry strikes me as impossible and the idea that it is possible anywhere in Europe to walk in to a Casino without established accounts and gamble sums of any substance without passports is also absurd as these four characters should all well know. Similarly the ability to transfer sums of cash via wire services without similar security controls is ludicrous. You have to have the right contacts who know and trust you and who will take the disproportionate amount for their trouble unless you are already an established part of the scene and have separate bargaining chips.
The consequence if all this is that two enjoy the second season four parter you have to suspend the brain. Their predicament is that that only one of four has anything to enjoy, in terms of a brief fling with the one female they encounter.
At the Casino Baxter is approached by a mysterious young woman, Carmen who reveals she knows they are changing money, and offers to help them which involves taking the money away to a third party for a percentage. She leave her mother with them as a kind of hostage although it appears that they make no checks that she is the real mother and not just some contact who is paid to entertain the men until the money is secreted out of their control. If the young woman failed to return what in reality would they do to or with the older woman. Absurd. They arrange to collect the clean money in the middle of no where only to witness their car exploding before they get back to it.
In the second episode the four take cover from the jacketed and helmeted individual on a motorbike who had delivered the cash and who they assume was behind the exploding hired car. How the car came to be wired up is not explained and if they had been inside the money would have been destroyed along with them.
Nearby is an abandoned village with still functioning church and a still stocked bar and an old woman care taker with breathing difficulties so she hunks round a air cylinder and follows the old religion so she kills a goat and makes a circle with the blood to enable to four to spend the night in peace within the church where they hide the money within the statue of the Madonna. The girl arrives and she and Baxter have sex while two others work out how to give themselves up to the authorities, put the blame on the other two and get out of the predicament. Quinn is in a constant state of panic and wanting to get out of the situation crosses the protective psychological black arts old religion barrier and is apprehended by the henchmen of the man whose money they had taken and who has his base on Ibiza which appears to be no more than a small in town and caravan on a holiday site. The big boss is Mackenzie played by the excellent David Warner who insists they give back every cent of the two million or be killed. Because of their money changing transaction and other expenditure they are 114000 euro’s short and they have 24 hours to make up the difference. Returning to their beach front base with the girl they find the man who changed the money for them hanged in an adjacent balcony.
In the third episode they discover or at least we the audience do that the friend who hand brought them together at his villa had worked for Mackenzie and then wanted out but he had been pressured into doing one more job in which they had become entangled. It is here the series becomes farcical as they are be able to raise about half the missing money from their contacts back home who are able to liquidate the assets and wire within the available time. They break into the safe they brought with them after realising that it contained cash as well as their phones. They trade in a Rolex and they steal the cash raised by those pavement artists who cover themselves in paint and pretend to be statues. They are 100 euro short and he tells them it is the full amount or else. Interestingly there is a wedding taking place when they to collect the money from the Madonna in the deserted village church. Just where did all the people come from? The old woman looks at them sadly as if knowing it will not work out well for them
Mackenzie decides that they will make up the missing money undertaking a task for him which is to yield 5 million euros after which they can go home ( you think?). Quinn stays behind as hostage and he will be shot if they fail to return having completed the task. Again they are given a short deadline.
The task involves a long trek in the midday sun across salt basins where in the middle of nowhere there is a stone hut in which are the ingredients to make 5 million euros worth of designer ecstasy tablets which they proceed to make overnight having been given the detailed instructions and they then deliver to the pre-arranged buyer sampling Ibiza nightlife in the process. They complete the job seconds before their mate is about to be executed and then Mackenzie tells them they can not only go but keep the money. He also tells them how they can get off the island quickly because the purchaser of the tablets was under the impression he was buying top quality when in fact what they had made was rubbish. Therefore they have to leave quietly as well as quickly so he recommends an empty container lorry.
Baxter is still having serious intentions about Carmen and leaves with the plan for her and her mother to join him in Barcelona. However the one container lorry they choose takes them to Morocco and where they open the doors to find some armed officials waiting for their money. So there is to be a third series with the men penniless in Morocco and having yielded all their assets back home. What a load of plonkers.
Although he appears well set up it is quickly evident that he is involved in a drug based crime gangs and corrupt police officers which leads to “borrowing” a boat and finding themselves in the possession of three million euros from the drug trade. As they become caught up in violence and a deaths they also encounter a corrupt police woman engage in ex marital or casual sex and admit that their lives are not as they like to present to others. The TV series is not to confused by the Robert Muchamore crime drama Mad Dogs which is also about the world of Drugs but in that instance two gangs fighting out a Turf War
The mini series works because of the interactions between Philip Glennister as Quinn, Mark Warren as Rick, John Simms as Baxter and Max Beasley as Woody who were once boys out chasing girls and drinking on weekend nights but have since gone their separate ways and now attracted to changing their lives albeit involving stealing money from a dreadful trade and which is something they are inept at. They want to be fully in control of their lives once more when the point of the first series as becomes apparent in the second is that they are not only being manipulated by others but have become no more than puppets whichever turn they take at junctions they encounter and where they always make the worst possible choice.
As the first series ended the four have been given the opportunity to get off the island and go home leaving their host to his fate. They return to find their friend dying and in order to survive themselves they run over the corrupt male detective and shoot the corrupt policewoman. The only thing which appears to make the return worthwhile is that they have acquired the three million and the closed safe holding their mobile phones which would identify them to the authorities and the criminals in pursuit, they appear to have got away to a new life
In the panic to get away they fail to check that they are getting on the right ferry and instead of crossing to the mainland at Barcelona they find themselves on the party Island of Ibiza.
Amazingly although this appears to be the height of the summer season they are able to get a beach front apartment where they decide to try and launder some of the money as the local casino. Admittedly I have only engaged in Greek Island hoping on foot ferry and organised coach and in Spain taking local boats to isolated beaches but the notion of being able to drive on to the wrong ferry strikes me as impossible and the idea that it is possible anywhere in Europe to walk in to a Casino without established accounts and gamble sums of any substance without passports is also absurd as these four characters should all well know. Similarly the ability to transfer sums of cash via wire services without similar security controls is ludicrous. You have to have the right contacts who know and trust you and who will take the disproportionate amount for their trouble unless you are already an established part of the scene and have separate bargaining chips.
The consequence if all this is that two enjoy the second season four parter you have to suspend the brain. Their predicament is that that only one of four has anything to enjoy, in terms of a brief fling with the one female they encounter.
At the Casino Baxter is approached by a mysterious young woman, Carmen who reveals she knows they are changing money, and offers to help them which involves taking the money away to a third party for a percentage. She leave her mother with them as a kind of hostage although it appears that they make no checks that she is the real mother and not just some contact who is paid to entertain the men until the money is secreted out of their control. If the young woman failed to return what in reality would they do to or with the older woman. Absurd. They arrange to collect the clean money in the middle of no where only to witness their car exploding before they get back to it.
In the second episode the four take cover from the jacketed and helmeted individual on a motorbike who had delivered the cash and who they assume was behind the exploding hired car. How the car came to be wired up is not explained and if they had been inside the money would have been destroyed along with them.
Nearby is an abandoned village with still functioning church and a still stocked bar and an old woman care taker with breathing difficulties so she hunks round a air cylinder and follows the old religion so she kills a goat and makes a circle with the blood to enable to four to spend the night in peace within the church where they hide the money within the statue of the Madonna. The girl arrives and she and Baxter have sex while two others work out how to give themselves up to the authorities, put the blame on the other two and get out of the predicament. Quinn is in a constant state of panic and wanting to get out of the situation crosses the protective psychological black arts old religion barrier and is apprehended by the henchmen of the man whose money they had taken and who has his base on Ibiza which appears to be no more than a small in town and caravan on a holiday site. The big boss is Mackenzie played by the excellent David Warner who insists they give back every cent of the two million or be killed. Because of their money changing transaction and other expenditure they are 114000 euro’s short and they have 24 hours to make up the difference. Returning to their beach front base with the girl they find the man who changed the money for them hanged in an adjacent balcony.
In the third episode they discover or at least we the audience do that the friend who hand brought them together at his villa had worked for Mackenzie and then wanted out but he had been pressured into doing one more job in which they had become entangled. It is here the series becomes farcical as they are be able to raise about half the missing money from their contacts back home who are able to liquidate the assets and wire within the available time. They break into the safe they brought with them after realising that it contained cash as well as their phones. They trade in a Rolex and they steal the cash raised by those pavement artists who cover themselves in paint and pretend to be statues. They are 100 euro short and he tells them it is the full amount or else. Interestingly there is a wedding taking place when they to collect the money from the Madonna in the deserted village church. Just where did all the people come from? The old woman looks at them sadly as if knowing it will not work out well for them
Mackenzie decides that they will make up the missing money undertaking a task for him which is to yield 5 million euros after which they can go home ( you think?). Quinn stays behind as hostage and he will be shot if they fail to return having completed the task. Again they are given a short deadline.
The task involves a long trek in the midday sun across salt basins where in the middle of nowhere there is a stone hut in which are the ingredients to make 5 million euros worth of designer ecstasy tablets which they proceed to make overnight having been given the detailed instructions and they then deliver to the pre-arranged buyer sampling Ibiza nightlife in the process. They complete the job seconds before their mate is about to be executed and then Mackenzie tells them they can not only go but keep the money. He also tells them how they can get off the island quickly because the purchaser of the tablets was under the impression he was buying top quality when in fact what they had made was rubbish. Therefore they have to leave quietly as well as quickly so he recommends an empty container lorry.
Baxter is still having serious intentions about Carmen and leaves with the plan for her and her mother to join him in Barcelona. However the one container lorry they choose takes them to Morocco and where they open the doors to find some armed officials waiting for their money. So there is to be a third series with the men penniless in Morocco and having yielded all their assets back home. What a load of plonkers.
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