House of Bond is the latest famous Aussie name to get the TV biopic treatment and a pudgy Ben Mingay displays the chancer from Western Australia in all his boorish, brash, bloated glory.

And it's got everything that you could want out of a good Australian story. It's got derring-do! It's got conspicuous wealth and huge houses! It's got tits! Beer! An astounding sporting victory!

And, of course, it was a success story built on scams, lies and credit that led to one of the biggest corporate fraud cases in Australian history.

But what does House of Bond bring to the Alan Bond story, two years on from his death?

Paul Barry's book The Rise and Fall of Alan Bond is the source material for the two feature-length episodes which are a breathless charge through Bond's business dealings and relationships.

The production values are excellent with a soft vintage glow tinting proceedings, backed by fun archival footage and flawless costume and set designs.

Bond appears as a kind of hybrid Paul Hogan-Donald Trump character. When Crocodile Bondy takes on the Yanks in the America's Cup with an innovative yacht design, it's hard not to imagine him saying "That's not a keel. This is a keel."

Mingay confidently inhabits Bond, but the character is an impenetrable figure. There's little insight into the fabric of the man: what triggered his unstoppable greed and drive, why he was such a cold manipulator and hedonist, and whether there was any conscience there at all.

It's the interactions with the women in his world which bring a sense of humanity to this story.

Adrienne Pickering excels as Eileen "Red" Bond, his first wife who saw his rise to becoming Australia's richest man. As Eileen is depicted here, she didn't particularly want any of the trappings of his financial success, nor to be trapped in a marriage with a prolific womaniser who refused to let her leave because it would be bad for business.

Elsewhere, Rachael Taylor brings a gentle touch to his long-term mistress and later second wife Diana Bliss.

Anne Looby is also a stand-out as Bond's stern, unforgiving mother, who perhaps was an explanation for for Bond's unstoppable thrust to prove himself.

House of Bond rockets through Bond's financial trajectory, from the early deals in Perth to the collapse of the Bond Corporation in the 1990s. There are only a few glimpses, however, of the might and charisma that allowed him to achieve what he did. Ahead of the successful bid for the 1983 America's Cup, for example, we see him give his team a rousing motivational speech that truly shows him as a man of convincing influence and impact. In the second episode, where all the glory turns awry and he becomes increasingly embattled, Mingay fleshes out the character with more of a brooding swagger.

Sam Neill is a commanding presence, elegant in comparison as British Lonrho tycoon Tiny Rowland, who exposed Bond's empty coffers. Gyton Grantley also rounds out the cast as Bond's right-hand man, a common-sense foil even if ineffective.

What's missing in House of Bond is a critical assessment of its subject. All Bond's misdemeanours are laid bare but they're presented with a superficial, glossy sheen which lacks substance, which ironically of course is rather like the story of the man himself.

Here, he's not a likeable figure, but he's not a wholly dislikeable one either. In lacking the depth to really create a connection with the character, good or bad, House of Bond treads the dangerous territory of ending up with viewers who are just, well, indifferent.

But on the surface, House of Bond is loud, luxurious and ambitious. How very apt for the man who always wanted more.

WHAT House of Bond

WHEN Monday and Tuesday, 9pm, Nine