Review of David Brent: Life on the Road (2016) by Matt C — 25 Aug 2016

I consider myself a big fan of cringe comedy. It's probably the most therapeutic type of humor, watching someone's ignorance and awkwardness from a detached position knowing that it can't have any effect on you, making you feel like less of a dumbass than you really are.

This is why I thrive on the humor that shows like The Inbetweeners and The Office (U.S. and U.K.) provide. That humor can only work for so long, though, and as I feared, David Brent: Life on the Road loses its hilarity of being a glorious train wreck to becoming repetitive and boring, even with a runtime of just 89 minutes (not including credits).

Fifteen years after The Office, David Brent (Ricky Gervais) has left Wernham Hogg and is now a sales representative and he goes on tour with his band Foregone Conclusion, the members enduring it all for the sake of cash.

With him is Dom Johnson (Doc Brown), a rapper being held back by David's idiocy. It's more or less what you'd expect, and it more or less works, but not quite enough. First off, Ricky Gervais is brilliant as this character.

His laugh, his lack of self-awareness, and the insecurities that are visible behind his attempts at humor are all there. The first half-hour or this movie has some of the most delightfully awkward exchanges between characters that I've seen in a while, and the movie largely does a good job at laughing at David, not the people that he's laughing at.

Some supporting roles from Tom Bennett (Love and Friendship) and Diane Morgan (Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe) are also really enjoyable--someone really needs to get Tom Bennett more and bigger roles as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the actors that play his bandmates do well at grounding the inaneness that oozes off of the central character. This was written and directed by Gervais, so it's pretty understandable that this character would be portrayed this well.

It's also pretty understandable why the movie doesn't know when to quit. Stephen Merchant, the other mind behind The Office, is completely absent from this, and you can see the impact that he had on the series.

I know that Gervais has said that this "isn't an Office film"--the only character from the series here is David Brent--but it shows that Gervais can't quite be the sole brain behind something like this.

As mentioned, this is 89 minutes without credits and it still feels long. The first half-hour is great, and next half-hour is good, and the last half-hour runs out of steam almost completely. It's partially the repetitiveness of it, partially the lackluster editing, partially the fact that it doesn't feel like more than a TV special, and mostly because it seems that Gervais can't choose which of his own jokes to have cut out in favor of a better pace and shorter runtime.

This could have been 80 minutes with credits. There really isn't that much to it, so it does feel stretched out as a result. There were four other people in my showing and one of them was laughing a lot at the beginning and later resorted to playing Candy Crush for the last half-hour.

David Brent: Life on the Road isn't what it could have been, and despite its several jokes that hit hard, the overall experience would have been better had Gervais of reined it in. All of the actors range from good to great and while it was nice to see David back and sing songs like "Thank Fuck It's Friday", "Please Don't Make Fun of the Disabled", and "Equality Street" more variation and briskness would have been nice.

Thankfully the film never agrees with David Brent's statements or actions, but the more it shows them on repeat until a rather sweet finale, it begins to feel like David Brent himself in movie form.

6.2/10, okay, one thumb down, average, etc.