Billions: Damian Lewis is the wolf of Wall Street

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Billions: Damian Lewis is the wolf of Wall Street

June 02, 2016 - 20:58
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What makes Billions so compelling is the clash of the Titans between the ruthless hedge funder who walks on water and the righteous district attorney who is determined to bring him down.

Billions: Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis) and Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti)

By Henrietta Knight

What makes Billions so compelling is the clash of the Titans between the ruthless hedge funder who walks on water and the righteous district attorney who is determined to bring him down.

We never quite seem to find out what it is that Bobby “Axe” Axelrod has done that is so heinously wrong but DA Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) seems to think that the New York super trader is the devil incarnate. These dueling alpha males are swimming in testosterone.

It’s not all good cop bad cop. Axelrod, played by Damian Lewis with a convincing American accent, is a very complex character. He started off at the bottom, survived 9/11 and rose from the ashes of the World Trade Centre to become the wolf of Wall Street.

He is a public philanthropist and seems like a good guy. He puts the children of his colleagues who died in the attacks through college and he gives loads of money to the New York firemen. He even bails out his favourite old pizza joint when it falls on hard times.

When he buys the $83 million mansion by the ocean he says: “What’s the point of having fuck off money, if you can’t say fuck you?”

Chuck Rhoades also has several layers to his character. Given the engrossing nature of the central conflict, it is not clear why the producers deemed it necessary to include silly scenes of sadomasochism as Chuck and his wife Wendy (Maggie Siff) dress up and play autoerotic games. It feels that this is just a device to sell the series around the world. It doesn’t remotely fit in with the narrative.

Furthermore as the resident psychiatrist to Axelrod’s firm dispensing her banal advice to a neurotic staff, Wendy’s character does not ring true. In real life a heroic hedge funder like Axe wouldn’t even listen to a psycho-babbler like Wendy, let alone employ her. It’s all too American for my liking.

But these are periphery issues. This is a brilliant story, well told. Axe’s wife Laura (Malin Akerman) is fascinating as his scheming Lady Macbeth. The way the couple play their children off against each other is really quite something.

This is not a series about what goes on in Wall Street. It’s about two massive prizefighters with overblown egos that are so huge they are off the scale.

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NancyD's picture

By Nancy Day

Billions is a behemoth of a melodrama about a moneyed Manhattan hedge funder called Bobby Axelrod and his nemesis, kinky district attorney Chuck Rhoades.

The plot is a cat and mouse game between slippery Wall Street giant Axelrod (Damian Lewis) and Rhoades (Paul Giamatti), who harbours ambitions to be governor.

In a rather silly twist, Rhoades' wife Wendy (Maggie Siff) is the in-house shrink at Axelrod's company. Indeed Mrs Rhoades has a lot on her plate. Not only does she rev up the traders with her rubbish advice, but she also seems rather obsessed with her boss. Then she has to go home to look after the children. That's not forgetting her dominatrix activities. All in a day's work.

The series opens with a lurid sex scene between Wendy and Chuck, which some may think shocking. It just made me laugh, but I enjoyed it immensely. The series is all about corruption.

The anti hero is Axe who I can't help liking. From a working class background in Queens, he is tempted to cheat on his wife (Malin Akerman) but he graciously wriggles out of it. He's a greed is good kinda guy, but we're still rooting for him. He's his own man - albeit a very rich and powerful one - in a world of liars and hypocrites.

Rhoades asks another bond trader: "What does Axe do?"

"Anything he wants. When you're at his level, you're more like a nation state than a person."

Axe is master of the universe: a philanthropist with a private jet, a Gatsby-style mansion and a backstage pass.

Kevin O'Sullivan's picture

Great review. Just wondering if Billions can be a "behemoth" of a drama. Discuss...

NancyD's picture

Hi Kev,
I looked up behemoth on an online dictionary. It said this: Behemoth comes from the Hebrew word b'hemah meaning beast. You can use it to describe large animals or large entities that make you feel small and powerless when you have to confront them. If a behemoth of a moose charges your car, you deal with it, and then with a behemoth of an insurance company, where just finding who to talk to is nearly impossible.
I don't see why I can't use it to describe a melodrama too.
Nancy ;)

trevhrd's picture

When you first watch Billions, or subsequently the following episodes, it's easy to forget what is going on. But within a few minutes you're right back in the middle, understanding what a brilliantly written story this is.

The setting is perfect, the mix of the characters' everyday life and work life blend magnificently and the chase of Giamatti'is character which is welcomed by Lewis' character makes this a compelling take on the cat and mouse game.

Even if you misunderstand parts of the story the acting will have you hooked. The support casts acting is top draw but the two leads particularly Damian Lewis acting is among the best I've witnessed and that alone will keep me drawn in until the very end.