After the closure of ‘Peaky Blinders’, Steven Knight has a new miniseries to delight us again. We have it on HBO Max (it is a co-production between BBC and Epix) and it takes us through the history of the formation in World War II of a historical military detachment. I speak of ‘SAS men‘ (Rogue Heroes).
Composed of six episodes, we travel to the heat of the African front where the allied troops try to prevent the Nazis from taking the few remaining strongholds in the north of the continent. In this environment, a detachment will emerge that will try to sabotage the axis beyond enemy lines.
From the beginning, with a “prologue” featuring a military convoy running out of gas to reach its objective, Knight’s script quickly sets the tone. This and a poster that warns us that the facts are “mostly” real, warn us that we are not going to have something faithful to the maximum, but rather something between myth, legend and reality. All this taking as a starting point the book by Ben Macintyre.
The Squad of Kooks
It also reinforces the feeling of the wacky lead group: Connor Swindells (‘Sex Education’) as David Stirling, Jack O’Connell (‘Godless’) as Paddy and alfie allen (‘Game of Thrones’) and Jock Lewes make up a trio of soldiers who are united by both their somewhat irreverent character and their disdain (and despair) for high command. They are the prototype of a hero: as crazy as inspiring and eager to finish off the enemy.
And that is why I don’t know to what extent we can say that the treatment of characters is even somewhat contradictory with how they face the horrors of war. The script strives late and already when we are facing the last blows of the series in putting them in front of the inevitable. In which, for example, they are aware that the people who die are from both sides.
this, whatWhat specifically fails me in the character of StirlingI think it comes from a certain clumsiness when it comes to developing (and making the protagonists evolve) throughout the miniseries, giving a sensation of a certain leap or lack of naturalness when it comes to reacting to events.
There are also certain ups and downs in the action and in the story. Knight, helped by Tom Shankland In directing, he manages to infuse tension and emotion into the moments that need it the most (missions usually leave great moments), but it is difficult for him not to get bogged down in the quieter sections, where he tends to fall into certain vagueness.
a grateful tone
Fortunately, the greatest virtue of ‘Los hombres del SAS’ is precisely that casual tone, light and even comic at times that permeates his footage. This makes the heavier times “balanced out” quite nicely.
In short, we find a good war miniseries that leaves a feeling that could have given much more show and be rather more solid than it is. But, equally, it is a worthy entertainment to watch in a couple of afternoons.