User Reviews

This is The Comic Strip's lampoon of 80's hit TV show "The Professionals" and it's as funny as it's accurate. Keith Allen and Peter Richardson have a riotous time sending up Bodie and Doyle, "let's going" around London bare-chested and trouser-less one last time under the iron-will of their tough-as-old-boots, wily Scot, ex-boss Commander Jackson (tributing Gordon, of course) cannily played by Robbie Coltrane.

Their mission is unimportant and indeed is the only weak part of the script, so far better just to join in the fun and laugh along at the unerringly accurate impersonations carried out by the three leads. For instance, when we first meet "Bone-head", he's hilariously training a bunch of track-suited wannabe tough-guy actors for TV work, especially when he teaches them "car-acting". Soon afterwards we encounter the be-permed serious, narcissistic thespian Foyle in a mock-up modern-day "Look Back In Anger"-type play, before Jackson hoists them out of there and teams them up again to rescue his kidnapped daughter.

The funniest scenes by far are those taking a rise out of the original show's stereotyped characters and clichéd situations so that now the pair's bromance is souped up to homo-erotic level before the blood bath body-count at the end and the inevitable closing helicopter panning shot.

It's very funny pretty much all the way through, idiomatically directed by Stephen Frears in an early task and as said earlier played to the hilt by Allen, Richardson and Coltrane. I loved "The Professionals" in my youth, probably before I fully gained my critical faculties, which no doubt helped me "get" this fun send-up as much as I did.

The Comic Strip parodies The Professionals. It was always a series that had slight right wing edge to it and it did not go unnoticed by Keith Allen and Peter Richardson.

They write and star as Bonehead and Foyle. The latter is called Martin Foyle and now masquerades as an actor in the theatre. Rather ridiculing actor Martin Shaw who wanted to be taken seriously as an actor after The Professionals. To be fair to Shaw, he did succeed.

Meanwhile Bonehead gives lessons to actors who want to be action stars and drive fast cars.

When Commander Jackson's (Robbie Coltrane) daughter is kidnapped, Bonehead and Doyle are called into action to find her. Only Jackson is unaware that people near him are calling the shots.

Directed by Stephen Frears who has had a more than respectable Hollywood career. It is frivolous, uneven and has a lot of homosexual subtext to it.

While The Comic Strip has quite a few very funny episodes this isn't one of them. The ones with Keef generally are the worst episodes of the series and this probably ranks as the worst of his efforts.

This episode is a send up of The Professionals ITV series which is actually a classic and is still shown to this day. Its still highly rated. However that doesn't mean that it cant be made fun of, its just that this episode doesn't do a very good job. The main "joke" of this Comic Strip episode is that the two main characters are gay. That's pretty much it. So they run about in underpants and leather jackets....because that is apparently what the writers think being gay is. There is even a scene where its exposed they are gay with semi explicit photographs apparently engaging in gay acts their boss is using to blackmail them into doing a job. Overall you get the impression that the writers have some strange jealousy or dislike of The Professionals cast and the cleverest thing they could think of in the 80s is to imply they are gay as an insult because they actually aren't. What is strange about this is there is actually a gay black actor in this and its odd that they wouldn't have suggested this entire episode comes across as pretty homophobic. I've no idea what those involved think of this episode now but "hasn't aged well" is the best description.

This series is all about parodies of British things that most Americans have never seen but it usually doesn't matter.In most episodes, if you can understand what they are saying you can enjoy the show.You didn't need to see whatever they are making fun of to get it.This episode is different.From what I can tell, if you haven't seen whatever obscure British TV show this is based on, you won't enjoy this.It's a typical Keith Allen episode, not very good.If you're not familiar with 1970's British police dramas you will not get this.I sure didn't.This is probably the worst episode of this series.I would recommend avoiding this and all episodes featuring Keith Allen(except The Yob).