Skip to content
Making TV series into big screen films is all the rage, these days. As well as the aforementioned Dad’s Army movie, Alan Partridge was resurrected in 2013 for the big screen in Alpha Papa, and for me, it got right everything that I’m Alan Partridge Series 2 got wrong, and restored my faith in the character – something which continued this year with Alan Partridge’s Scissored Isle on Sky Atlantic. However, in the case of Partridge movie, it’s clear the writing is brilliantly honed down until there is not a moment of the 90 minutes that goes unfilled with brilliance.
Now, if we had big screen versions of Man Down or Philomena Cunk, I *would* be interested!
With David Brent: Life in the Road, as well as the fact he appears to mirror Partridge in rolling the opening credits over a motorway driving scene, Gervais is clearly missing Stephen Merchant. They worked wonders with The Office and Extras, and also applied a fair amount of magic to Cemetery Junction. With Brent this time, it’s all written and directed by Gervais.
Being a rock star is David Brent’s pet project, same as Ricky Gervais having one last hurrah with Brent is his own pet project. However, reality mirrors fiction in terms of its success with this reviewer. Similarly, Brent is often ‘too cool for school’. Unfortunately, Gervais is the same. When most guests appear on the three-hour Sunday Brunch magazine programmme on Channel 4, they’re there for the start at 9.30am, except him, not turning up until the show was half over. He also left before it finished, leaving it to Tim Lovejoy to break the news, making it sound like he had somewhere else to be… but on a Sunday?? I doubt it. Still, he was dominating the show too much, so it was better for him to leave.
In addition, Gervais has dismissed criticism that he’s “milking” the David Brent character because between The Office and this film, there’s only around nine hours of Brent ever made. That’s true, but when this film is basically rehashing his 2003 The Office Christmas Special, he IS rehashing it!
There’s a couple of touching moments in this film that I wasn’t expecting, and which were quite sweet, but beyond that, if you saw the trailer, did it make you want to hear to the cinema for another 90 minutes of the character?
What makes it completely unrealistic is that while there’s a couple of moments of self-doubt in Brent, when the self-denial is proving too much for him and you really start to believe that this is a man who is just not getting the message about his behaviour… we also had those back in The Office, such as the day he got fired, while dressed as an ostrich. And again, he tries to chat up women in his office, yet just leaves them bemused with his antics. And again, he still think’s he’s a boss, even though now, he’s just a rep who’s answerable to a boss. So, any normal person would’ve learned from that at the time, not still be goofing around at 55 years of age. I guess that’s where suspension of disbelief comes in.
I’ll say, watch it if you really enjoyed The Office and have a passing interest in seeing how David Brent might be doing today, but I can’t recommend it as a big screen experience. For that, check out Suicide Squad (much better than a lot of the reviews would have you believe), Jason Bourne (the best Bourne since the first one) or Star Trek Beyond (the rebooted franchise finally heading into warp speed).
In the days before watching this film, I had two dreams about it. One was that I went to see it and walked out after an hour, going to the toilet, then having a wander around the cinema, then realising I’d left the auditorium without realising! I’m not normally that harsh a critic!
I also had a second one, the night before seeing this, where Little Mix had also done a (different) song called Equality Street, and it was coincidence that they’d released their single just as the film was coming out. I could be a smart arse and say that my dream self was right in the first one, but then I rarely give up on a movie, as I figure there must be SOME reason why it’s been made, and I’d still want to have seen this, just to see how it turned out.
And as for my continuing end credit adventures. Sadly, no different than the worse case scenario: The credits began, the side lights (low during trailers and adverts) came on bright, the cleaner switched on the ‘nuclear blast white’ cleaning lights, the other four audience members left, as did the cleaner, and I was left on my own with the fallout, unable to read the end credits properly.
You might think I’d be wanting to race out of there given how bad the film was, but you never know if there are post-credit sequences to come…
But now I know…
There is not.
David Brent: Life On The Road is available to pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD, and you can also buy the Soundtrack CD right now. Also, click on the poster for the full-size version.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 96 minutes
Studio: Entertainment One
Cinema: Vue, Lowry, Salford Quays
Year: 2016
Format: 1.85:1
Released: August 19th 2016
Rating: 1.5/10
Director: Ricky Gervais
Producers: Ricky Gervais and Charlie Hanson
Screenplay: Ricky Gervais
Cast:
David Brent: Ricky Gervais
Pauline: Jo Hartley
Dom Johnson: Doc Brown
Foregone Conclusion drummer: Andy Burrows
Foregone Conclusion bassist: Steve Clarke
Foregone Conclusion keyboardist/guitarist: Michael Clarke
Foregone Conclusion guitarist Stu Monkford: Stuart Wilkinson
Dan, Brent’s road manager: Tom Basden
Nigel: Tom Bennett
Karen Pasharar: Mandeep Dhillon
Serena Wilson: Abbie Murphy
Bryony: Diane Morgan
Brent’s therapist: Nina Sosanya
Jezza: Andrew Brooke
Club groupies: Roisin Conaty and Ashley McGuire
Pog: Alexander Arnold
Miriam Clarke (HR Manager): Rebecca Gethings
Ents Manager: Oliver Maltman
Sandra: Stacha Hicks
A&R Man: Michael Keat
Shocked audience member: Olivia Quinn
Wolfman: Joshua Ferdinand
Vincenzo: Thomas Kadman
Engineer: Nathan Dean Williams
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.