Glossy financial drama Billions was one of the big American television hits of last year. As the name suggests, it focuses on billionaire hedge-fund manager David Axelrod (Damian Lewis) and his battle with district attorney Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti).
It quickly becomes apparent that the success of Axelrod's fund, Axe Capital, is down to insider trading using information acquired through bribery, blackmail and other means. Matters are complicated by the fact that Rhoades' wife Wendy (Maggie Siff) works for him as Axe Capital's in-house psychiatrist, while Rhoades' father (Jeffrey DeMunn) is a Wall Street operator who is not above bending a few laws himself.
The producers were clearly worried that the subject matter might be hard for most audiences to embrace. So they focused on grabbing attention through shock tactics, such as Rhoades' taste for kinky sex. The result is that the first few episodes are full of cartoonish plot twists and campy melodrama at the expense of character.
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Despite the involvement of Andrew Ross Sorkin, who wrote Too Big to Fail, an acclaimed account of the global financial crisis of 2007-2009, the financial aspects are pushed to one side. However, once the series settles down and becomes slightly more realistic, the duel between Rhodes and Axelrod becomes interesting.
Nevertheless, Billions is hardly The Wolf of Wall Street or Boiler Room, let alone Wall Street, when it comes to giving an insight into the financial sector. You'd get a better idea of how hedge funds work from reading one of Sorkin's books. The TV series is essentially a big-budget, all-star soap opera and certainly becomes much more enjoyable if you view it as a comedy-drama, rather than as straight drama. But if you like your television to be exaggerated and over the top, then you'll love Billions. Even if you don't, it is still highly watchable and the sort of thing ideal for a cold winter evening or rainy Saturday afternoon.
What the papers said
"Billions is exactly the sort of show that, if you don't reject its over-the-top tactics in the first three episodes, will hook you by the sixth," writes Heather Havrilesky in The New York Times. It's "hard not to be caught up by the spectacle" of "two snarling patriarchs in a personal as much as a professional standoff". "It's really just about a couple of egotistical macho men called Axe and Chuck going head to head in a shower of gold and $100 bills", agrees The Guardian's Sam Wollaston. Despite the "undercooked" dialogue and the "absurd" twists, the "sheer, unapologetic soapiness of the action" steals the day, concludes Gabriel Tate in The Daily Telegraph.
Series one out now on DVD (£17.99). Series two begins 19 February on Sky Atlantic
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Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.
He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.
As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.
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