Mad Dogs (2016)

The tropical backdrop looks great--it’s like watching an episode of Survivor with a bunch of hyped-up macho actors (in other words, exactly like an episode of Survivor, minus Jeff Probst). But you have to put up with a lot of macho bluster and silliness, with dialogue that sometimes shades over into Three Stooges territory. (“Why were you running?” “I was running because you were running!”) If your tolerance for tough-guy bravado with flashes of violence is high, you might enjoy running with these mad dogs.

It’s a familiar theme, but thrillingly executed in the early going.... Like many streaming series, though, it seems to be marking time in the middle (Amazon previewed six of 10 episodes for critics), as the characters try to escape Belize and the plot tosses them among so many frying pans and fires that the whole thing threatens to overcook.

It doesn’t really work out well enough as a concoction, unfortunately, as characters continuously choose one bad option after another, further complicating their already troubling situation and thus creating more pandemonium.

Six of 10 episodes were made available for review; and over their course the truth-telling gets a little repetitious, a little annoying, a little dull; there are only so many bandages you can rip off to reveal other bandages you can rip off to get down to the skin you can peel back to get down to the bone.

After that relatively engrossing first episode, however, things quickly becomes repetitive, and despite the actors’ game investment in the material, it’s difficult to care much about a group of middle-aged men who constantly snipe at each other and do a fine job of getting themselves in deeper trouble every time they try to dig themselves out of a bad situation.