Inside Men

Are cash-counting houses supervised by one person?  And do they take on dodgy staff from the casual labour force?  Stranger things have happened.  These aside, the only other TWNHs we noticed so far are more a matter of sloppy characters rather than sloppy writing: Marcus lights two gas rings for warmth in the middle of the night while wearing just a t-shirt and his partner Gina sleeps with full make-up.  They must be heading for a fall.

A promising start, enlivened by that old staple of a heist gone bloody and then wrenched around 'til you want to trust everyone but can't trust anyone.  The best thing about Basgallop's script is the seamless set-ups of unhappy private circumstances and compromised morals that form the background for most crimes.  Upright John sacks an employee for minor theft but suggests a daring robbery and pauses on the brink of shooting security-guard Chris.  In turn, Chris has given a helping hand to Dita, the thieving employee above, but has he only done so because he finds her attractive?  And he, too, is not above thieving from his employer.  Marcus is the amiable loser who thinks nothing of siphoning funds or even selling plans of the warehouse to the highest bidder.  By the end of the first episode, with another three to go, it looks like the robbery has been planned and executed by these three inside men.

At its heart is a serious and depressing proposition.  Are people well-behaved on principle, from a belief that it is morally right, or from half-baked notions, ideas badly taught and a fear of the consequences of doing otherwise?  Luckily for non-philosophers, it's a gripping drama too.