David Brent : Life On The Road

DAVID BRENT : LIFE ON THE ROAD

Director : Ricky Gervais

Year : 2016

Genre : Comedy

Rating : **

Ever since he got his guitar out in the first season of 'The Office', it was clear that David Brent was destined to be more than just the manager of a humble Slough-based paper manufacturer and now in 'David Brent : Life On The Road', we see his dreams of becoming a rockstar finally coming true. Sort of.

Having taken unpaid leave from his new job as a sales rep for Lavichem, a shoddy discount sanitary products company, Brent embarks on what he believes will be a life-changing tour with his band Foregone Conclusion - a tour that ends up becoming a self-funded string of poorly attended gigs in a couple of dingy pubs where his controversial lyrics about multiple minorities make him just as unpopular with his fellow musicians as it does with his unpaying public.

With his awkward laugh, politically incorrect humour and cringeworthy self-aggrandizing, David Brent is just as irritating and as frustrating to watch as ever and Ricky Gervais (who also serves as director, writer, and producer) really does put everything into making his star-making anti-hero as pathetic and as knuckle-chewingly annoying as is humanly possible.  But rather than being the lovable oaf of the TV show, Brent has now become an almost torturous prescence whose frequent cringeworthy dialogue and consistently hideous viewpoints about obesity, disability and race illicit both annoyance and hate. 

For the first 10 minutes or so, the laughs come thick and fast, with Brent's trademark wisecracks providing some of the best comedy seen on the big screen this Summer. Stuck in yet another dead-end job, he desperately tries to make the best of the situation and his oblivious naievity and determination really does make us care and root for this most beloved of comedy characters. However, as soon as he leaves his job at Lavichem to go on his ill-fated tour, the film quickly dips in both humour and quality - sluggishly drifting from one deathly repetitive scene to another as Brent makes a fool of himself both on and off the stage singing his infuriatingly catchy songs while his various bandmates stare at him in dumbfounded horror and disgust. It may be funny when the hapless berk makes a prat of himself the first time but after the 800th time, not so much.

The true genius of 'The Office' and many of his other projects is that while Gervais may be the central focus, the real laughs come from the supporting players - the Steven Merchants, the Martin Freemans, the Greg Kinnears and the Karl Pilkingtons who help to dilute some of the ferocity and abrasiveness of his various comic creations. However on his own, David Brent is a completely insufferable figure to spend any significant amount of time with and while the laughs are fairly frequent and the surprisingly poignant ending may even bring on a tear or two, 'Life On The Road' is a markedly underwhelming, inconsistent and sometimes downright agonising return for one of British comedies most enduring and popular icons.