Review #1,134: 'David Brent: Life on the Road' (2016)

13 years after Ricky Gervais' iconic comic creation David Brent bowed out in hilarious style with The Office Christmas special, the now-former manager of Slough's Wernham-Hogg paper merchants returns for one last swansong. Nearly cancelled during its second season due to low ratings, The Office has gone on to be one of Britain's biggest comedy exports, claiming award after award and making stars of writers Gervais and Stephen Merchant. It is one of those rare examples of a series ending precisely when it should and not being dragged out as long as its popularity remained, and this is a belief shared by most of its devout fans.

So, fans were naturally worried when Gervais announced that he would re-visit the "extraordinary, ordinary man" he claimed he had retired for a feature-length movie. With any sitcom-turned-movie, there is the concern that making the leap from a successful 30-minute format to a 90 minute movie that people would be willing to pay to see just won't work. The trend of sending its characters off for a holiday in the hope of generating enough laughs so the audience won't notice the lack of originality rarely pays off, but Gervais, working here without Merchant, makes an effort to dodge cliches and does a decent job in exploring other areas of his goateed alter-ego. Ultimately however, Life on the Road doesn't have the energy or ideas to sustain its running time.

For long periods of the first half, there are enough laughs to keep things ticking over. Brent is now working as a travelling salesman for bathroom supply company Lavichem, but realising he isn't getting any younger, he decides to make one last stab at fame with his band Foregone Conclusion and go on tour. By moving the action from the office to the open road, Gervais has offered Brent the opportunity to offend and embarrass a whole new set of people. His band mates can't stand him, the sound engineer only agrees to tag along when Brent regrettably promises to pay double his normal wage, and his rapper 'protege' Dom (Ben Bailey Smith - normally known by his stage name Doc Brown) hopes to make it on his own. It's soon clear why - songs such as 'Native American' and 'Please Don't Make Fun of the Disableds' leave the audience horrified.

Gervais steps back into the drab suits and trademark goatee with ease, ensuring that the to-camera mugging, nervous chuckle and overbite are all present and correct. He even manages to inspire sympathy for a man who manages to even drop a drunken N-bomb, as we learn of his previous battle with depression and anxiety over loses his treasured job at Wernham-Hogg. But there are long stretches where the film doesn't generate any laughs, and memories of the innovative, landmark comedy series make it seem like watching a once-great sportsman slowly deteriorate with age when they should have retired long ago. The Office already had its perfect ending, so it begs the question as to why Gervais felt the need to don the Brent mask once again. While it hardly tarnishes the legacy, Life on the Road feels like a pointless last hurrah that nobody was asking for.


Directed by: Ricky Gervais
Starring: Ricky Gervais, Ben Bailey Smith, Jo Hartley, Tom Bennett
Country: UK/USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #761: 'This Is England' (2006)

Shane Meadows' This is England, like the title suggests, is a bare-knuckled, fearlessly honest depiction of England. This isn't any old England, but Thatcher's angry, graffiti-ridden, skinheaded England, a time of needless war, poverty, and, key to the film, racial intolerance. Meadows' loosely autobiographical film lays it's anger out for all to see from the off, as the camera lingers on a council-estate wall scrawled with 'Maggie is a twat'. But there's humour here also, and heart.

We witness the majority of the film through the eyes of Shaun Fields (Thomas Turgoose - his character's name a thinly-disguised spin on that of the director's), a ragged, bullied loner, who lives alone with his mother after his father is killed in the Falklands. Walking home one evening from school, he is pitied by Woody (Joseph Gilgun), a Dr. Martens-wearing skinhead who, along with his friends, enjoys some harmless vandalism taken out on derelict properties. Woody takes him under his wing, even buying him a Ben Sherman and braces, and shaving his head. His mum doesn't approve, but at least he's being looked after. All is rosy until Woody's old friend Combo (Stephen Graham) is released from prison.

His time in prison taught Combo that England is no longer what it once was, and is now overrun by immigrants taking away jobs from honest folk like himself and his bare-chested, meat-head friend Banjo (George Newton). He draws a line for Woody's gang - those who want to join him on his crusade to help restore England to it's glory days, and those who don't. Woody quickly points out that Combo is out of line, especially in the presence of his Jamaican friend Milky (Andrew Shim). But when Woody leaves, Shaun stays, and is sucked in by Combo's charisma, attending right-wing rallies in countryside pubs and smashing up the local shop owned by a Pakistani man.

Like Elem Klimov's Come and See (1985), the child protagonist does the remarkable thing of ageing throughout. Not a physical transformation like Florya, but in presence. He evolves effortlessly from a boy whining at his mum in a shoe shop for not buying him a pair of Dr. Martens, to a foul-mouthed, brainless thug gobbling up everything that is fed to him by those around him. Meadows makes it clear that there are two types of skin-heads - those who embrace the style and image influenced by black music such as ska, and those bigoted, entitled types, channelling anger simply because it's there. Combo is obviously the second kind, but he has own dimensions too.

Stephen Graham's performance is spectacular and genuinely terrifying. Anyone who has grown up in England will know the type; the type thankfully I've only ever come across when they get on a train and quickly draw attention to themselves. His words fly like scouse venom, his every line punctured by a swear word. But his protection of Shaun and his occasional child-like vulnerability means that there's sympathy to be given somewhere. Like all great child performances, Turgoose remains a child throughout, avoiding precociousness even in his most emotional scenes. And it's 12 year-old Shaun that remains the film's anchor, our wide-eyed window into innocence manipulated.


Directed by: Shane Meadows
Starring: Thomas Turgoose, Stephen Graham, Jo Hartley, Andrew Shim, Joseph Gilgun, Vicky McClure
Country: UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie