WRITER: Jed Mercurio DIRECTOR: Daniel Percival CAST: Richard Armitage, Andrew Lincoln, Orla Brady, Shelley Conn, Colin Salmon & Jodhi May
Like the esteemed Andy McNab before him, ex-SAS soldier Chris Ryan has carved a successful post-military career writing books using his experiences in the field. His fictional work has proven popular with male readers in particular, as Tom Clancy-esque pieces of macho posturing with an added twist of plausibility given their author's first-hand background. Ryan's 2007 novel Strike Back has been adapted into a six-part series for Sky1, a channel with serious intentions to broaden its homegrown drama output away from Terry Pratchett adaptations. As the most Americanized broadcaster in Britain today (thanks to its ties to magnate Rupert Murdoch), it's little surprise to discover that Sky's Strike Back (Sky1, Wednesdays @9pm) felt like a cut-price version of Fox's 24, with a Spooks-style onus on real political situations and foreign location filming in South Africa (standing in for the Middle East.) And while it was unapologetically prone to macho posturing and grabbed every cliché in a tight headlock, it was also a very entertaining two-hours of bruising silliness. Our dashing hero is John Porter (Spooks'Richard Armitage), erstwhile member of a British Army Special Forces unit that stormed a Baghdad building just prior to the 2003 Iraq invasion, to retrieve a British hostage. During the mission, Porter's decision to disarm a young suicide bomber's explosives (instead of kill him) resulted in the boy later shooting three of his men dead and injuring his best-friend Hugh Collinson (Andrew Lincoln). Traumatized, Porter resigns from the SAS to become a security guard, but seven years later decides to get himself reactivated after hearing about war correspondent Katie Dartmond (Orla Brady) being kidnapped by terrorists "The Sword Of Islam", who are demanding the release of a comrade from HMP Belmarsh. The reason for Porter's interest is that he recognizes one of Katie's kidnappers as the now-adult suicide bomber from his botched raid in '03, and intends to find atonement by killing this boy they've codenamed "Scarface". Eventually sent back into Basra by his friend Collinson (who now handily works for MI6's covert "Section 20"), Porter finds himself the only man capable of rescuing Katie before the terrorist's deadline passes, once a booby-trapped warehouse wipes out everyone else... From thereon, it's a male fantasy of James Bond proportions, with Porter proving extraordinarily effective in locating Katie's whereabouts and, naturally, implementing an exciting escape plan single-handed. Along the way the story merrily ticks off an abundance of Iraq war clichés Iraq accrued post-9/11; the terrorists stream an internet video of a hand being chopped off, a tracker is removed from a molar, there's ugly torture scenes (waterboarding, whipping), and throughout it all Collinson's team watch events unfold from a surveillance screen back in London. I'm sure there's a kernel of truth to everything, accepting a certain level of exaggeration for dramatic effect, but writer Jed Mercurio's script does feel like he's just going down a checklist of moments soaked up by a decade of pop-culture. There wasn't much that felt fresh or surprising, beyond Porter apparently hiding a penknife where the sun doesn't shine. The curious thing is that Strike Back, despite its blunt staleness in many areas, was thoroughly entertaining and action-packed, with a strong sense of pace and fun performances the tin-eared script didn't deserve. Armitage is a big reason the show overcomes its meat-headed approach; a plausible mix of handsome hunk with a sensitive side and protective streak, he appeals to both genders because he's not too soft and not too hard. This adaptation even dispenses with the novel's wrinkle that Porter has a drinking problem. Armitage effectively stakes a claim as the new Sean Bean here, and no doubt Sky are hoping John Porter will become his Richard Sharpe. Overall, Strike Back will likely divide audiences; it's expensive, dumb fun that often feels like a video-game, but those are qualities many US action shows embrace and aren't criticized for doing so. It's just a shock to see a British-made action series producing something that is, in many ways, a piece of propaganda with no appetite for considered realism. It's a real-world fantasy that isn't ashamed to give viewers a square-jawed hero fighting one-dimensional baddies to rescue a pretty damsel in distress. It would certainly be a better series if its clichés weren't laid on so thick, if there was more intelligence to backup its bravado, and if the villains weren't all lazy stereotypes, but I'm not sure it would be as purely entertaining. Sometimes you need a media posterboy (a "Dirty" Harry, a Rambo, a Jack Bauer) to attach the national consciousness to in troubled times; a fictional hero the people can cheer on, whose adventures connect to the root of societal concerns and political issues, but aren't too boringly deferential to them. There's a variety of ways to approach drama, basically, and Strike Back's firmly in the "entertainment first, realism second" camp. That either appeals, or it doesn't.