‘Mad Dogs’ Doesn’t Celebrate American Masculinity, It Mourns It

Over a year ago, I watched the pilot for Amazon’s new drama Mad Dogs and I didn’t really care for it.

To be fair to the show, there was nothing wrong with the acting, writing, or directing. It was a wholly accomplished pilot that presented five fully-fleshed out characters wonderfully brought to life by the likes of Ben Chaplin, Michael Imperioli, Romany Malco, Steve Zahn, and Billy Zane. The scenery was spectacular and there was more than enough of plot to digest. The issue I had with it was all down to personal taste. I felt, as a young-ish woman, that there was precious little in this story about middle-aged men lamenting their lost youth for me to latch onto. Everyone gets old. Everyone watches their dreams fade away. What made the disappointments of this handful of anti-heroes so important?

It turns out that’s kind of the point.

The title of The New York Times‘ review might declare that “On Mad Dogs…Male Bellicosity Rules,” but this show is really about male bluster. Mad Dogs shows its unlikely heroes scrapping with drug lords and fighting in the jungles of Belize, but there’s nothing macho about anyone on the series. From the pilot’s opening shot, it’s unclear if we’re supposed to root for these men or laugh at them.

It’s not enough that Joel (Chaplin), Lex (Imperioli), Gus (Malco), and Cobi (Zahn) are obsessed with calling each other “losers,” the show wants make a point that they all are. By thrusting these everyday dudes into the high-stakes world of drug deals, murder, and tropical adventure, we see how little they come up to snuff. Every tense scene in Mad Dogs can easily pushed into the realm of satire. In fact, the show seems to delight in skirting this edge between being absolutely thrilling and openly funny.

When pushed into this badass world of assassins and cocaine boats, they are hopelessly clueless. All four of them are terrified beyond belief and spend more time bickering like little boys about who’s in charge than taking action. There’s a stupendously silly moment in the second episode where the guys run through the tall grass, hauling millions of Euros, and when they stop it becomes clear that none of them knew why they were running in the first place. The moment is accompanied by a nerve-wrecking bass-blasting score, but it’s teetering on the edge of comedy. Put Will Ferrell, Zach Galifiankis, Kevin Hart, and Adam Scott in the same scene and you have a summer farce. In another scene, Lex and Cobi are so afraid of an iguana — AN IGUANA!!! — chilling out on a log, that they switch paths and get themselves lost. For all their swagger, these men are useless.

It’s possible that I’m being too harsh on these beleaguered bros, but it turns out this is exactly the message the showrunners had in mind. While adapting the show from its original British version, showrunners Shawn Ryan and Cris Cole decided to up the ante on exploring how devastating the disappointment of middle age is for men. During Amazon’s panel at last week’s Television Critics Association press tour, Ryan explained that Mad Dogs is “a show about the uselessness of the American middle-aged man. American men are kind of raised as kids with this idea of American exceptionalism and the idea of the American dream. So there’s almost something more crushing for American men in this story [than for the original British characters].”

Watching the show with this new viewpoint, I asked myself, what’s more crushing for these men? The idea that these guys should have done more with their lives? Or that when confronted with true danger, true excitement, and true high stakes, they can’t hack it? They might be able to talk the talk, but they can’t walk the walk, and that’s where it seems that the trappings of masculinity fail these characters. Being a man isn’t about posturing or cursing or sexual prowess or success — it’s about being a responsible and dignified adult when faced with true adversity. In Mad Dogs, the men discover they aren’t much more than overgrown boys. It’s a show with a whole lot more depth when you look at it as uneasy commentary on the values that let these guys down. Mad Dogs didn’t come here to celebrate American masculinity, but to mourn it.

[Stream Season 1 of Mad Dogs On Amazon]

[Photos: Amazon Studios]