SummaryTwelve years ago, David Brent (Ricky Gervais) was a regional manager for a mid-level paper merchants. Now working as a rep selling cleaning (and ladies personal hygiene) products up and down the country, Brent hasn’t given up his dream of becoming a rock star – or more specifically, singer/songwriter for fledgling rock band ‘Foregone Con...
SummaryTwelve years ago, David Brent (Ricky Gervais) was a regional manager for a mid-level paper merchants. Now working as a rep selling cleaning (and ladies personal hygiene) products up and down the country, Brent hasn’t given up his dream of becoming a rock star – or more specifically, singer/songwriter for fledgling rock band ‘Foregone Con...
A late third-act turn into sentimental territory, in which the original show’s misanthropy is sugared up, may feel artificial to viewers drawn to the series’ persistent despairing streak; still, it makes a certain sense given that the film would otherwise entirely lack an emotional arc.
+Great songs
+Excellent cast
+Decent plot
-/+ depressing tone throughout
For a comedy based on following an underdogs impossible dream of making it in the music industry, it's surprisingly good. Avoiding most possible cheesy feel good movie plot tropes, it instead takes the path of utter cringe and depression displaying the vulnerability of David's man child persona in the most awkward ways. It was very entertaining! And the songs are easily as good as tenacious d etc. Fantastic.
Life on the Road ultimately makes good in a way that few comedy films based on television characters do. Perhaps part of that owes to Gervais’ not-so-subtle, yet still powerful, insights into David Brent.
As a comedy creation, David Brent is still a masterwork, and the film works best when the pathos hits as hard as the punchlines. But Life on the Road should probably be the leaving party we all thought had been thrown a few times already.
Being stuck in a cinema with David Brent for 96 minutes can be trying (the lazy ending doesn’t help). But when Gervais is on an improvisational roll, Brent digging himself deeper and deeper into some awful pit of social awkwardness, we can’t help but remember why we love to hate them both.
David Brent remains an enduring comic grotesque, but this sporadically amusing big-screen resurrection is more cash-in reunion tour than killer comeback album.
The film is quite repetitive, essentially a very long sketch, and offers little in the way of character development for supporting players. In contrast to the original "The Office," everyone else is there mainly to stare in shock at David as he offends people or does something stupid.
David Brent: Life on the Road was a ton of silly fun. Gervais is still perfect as awkward idiot David Brent and there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments to enjoy. The climax is a little contrived and can't quite deliver the same payoff as the Christmas specials it so obviously apes. But this is still a massive amount of fun for fans of The Office.
that's what i do..
David Brent: Life On The Road
The character has a lot to offer since it just doesn't pick up where it was left off, Ricky Gervais accounts in those 15 years on screen by not only writing but playing it more mature and strong like never before. David Brent: Life On The Road is like a montage to the character but projecting in the most non-ordinary way and checks off each and every tale emerging from his mind. Ricky Gervais whispers innocence despite of whatever he may be speaking about and keeps it clean and crystal clear when it comes to act out pain and intense sequences. David Brent: Life On The Road is depressing, cruel and makes you wanna root and hope betterment for the protagonist despite of its eerie deeds making it more human than ever and also in the end Ricky waves to the character offering hope and goodwill.
David Brent, the (anti)hero of BBC’s legendary comedy series „The Office“ is back again, with a proper feature-length movie for the first time, distributed in most of the world as Netflix Original.
It’s written and directed by Ricky Gervais who pulls no punches humiliating his famous character further, who's still on his road to fame as a singer.
Gervais has also written and performed a bunch of songs for Brent, and although they are supposed to be horrible (aren’t they?), I actually liked all of them. Some are pretty memorable even outside the context of the movie.
But man oh man, is this a difficult watch or what, even if you are used to (British) comedies which always try to mete out as much disgrace to their main characters as possible.
Of course, Gervais has always been very fond of that but „Life on the Road“ feels like new high or something – or new low if you please.
Watching it gets as difficult as comedies can be… probably. Brent’s life is so painfully awkward that you just gotta feel for the poor guy. At the same time, Gervais has figured out exactly how to make him so untolerable and socially graceless that you wouldn’t want to be in the same room with someone like Brent, especially in work environment.
I know creating this kind of tension is the whole point here, but it just depressed the hell out of me. In its own right, it is well done but hardly recommendable for anybody outside the Gervais die-hard fans circle.
If you would like to know what Brent did after „The Office“ and how did he fare as a rock star, then you’ll just have to check this out. For others, it may be interesting as (yet another) excursion into the mind of acerbic comedy mastermind Ricky Gervais. Just prepared that you’ll feel low afterwards.
I personally think the original UK version of The Office is a masterpiece and to this day it is still arguably the best sit-com ever produced. When I heard that Ricky Gervais was planning to bring back David Brent I was worried it would spoil the legacy of one of comedies most memorable characters. Fortunately it isn't as bad as I feared it might be but, much like Life's Too Short and (the awful) Derek, everything is so heavy handed that the emotional pay-offs it so desperately hopes for just aren't earned. Where is the subtlety that made the final scenes of The Office, and to some degree Extras, so great?
There are two things that do save Life on the Road to some degree. The first, and most important, Gervais's portrayal of Brent. The way he slips into the character so naturally does help you to overlook much of the mediocre writing and still find a good few laughs. The second is the fact that the songs, despite the (intentional) terrible lyrics, are actually quite catchy.
In the end Life on the Road is probably a movie that wasn't really needed but it could have been a lot worse.
I don't know, the only thing funny here were the songs, but actual jokes in the movie were so few. Maybe if you were a big Office UK fan, then it will be great for you, but I think this movie was pretty unfunny as a whole and I actually really like Gervais and expected lots of fun here.