I love Ricky Gervais. To me, he’s one of a very small number of British comedians with any cultural worth whatsoever. His podcasts got me through university, and he created one of the last genuine television prototypes with The Office, which I’d consider the finest British series ever made. His astute observations on the mediocrity of middle-life, middle-England and middle management in a mockumentary setting created two series and a Christmas special of genuinely brilliant viewing. Its ubiquitous influence is still seen today, on anything from other BBC comedies to student films.
The cliché of the ‘difficult second album’ came with his follow-up series Extras which, though still very funny, felt less astute, showing glimpses of the more ham-fisted nature of his creative output, which would only escalate with time. After the success of The Office, Gervais was commissioned to create a series of interviews with his comedy icons, the most awkward of which was with the recently departed Gary Shandling (whose The Larry Sanders Show was clearly a huge influence on Extras). From both these interviews, and his post-Office output, it feels like the The Office might be the one truly original idea that Gervais had.
It would be unfair to say that anything he’s made has been stolen, but everything since that first idea has felt like a lesser amalgamation of iconic comedy. In How I Escaped My Certain Fate, Stewart Lee talks about the reaction he received from friends and family when Gervais first started to perform stand up. It wasn’t that he was stealing jokes; more that he had assumed a similar identity, and done so far more successfully. American comedians refer to it at as ‘Comedian’s Children’. Dave Attell is cited as one of the biggest examples, and Bill Hicks another. People don’t recite their material onstage, but rather steal aspects of their personality.
This, to me at least, feels like the biggest problem with Gervais and his cinematic output. Gone is the originality, the canny observations and the sincerity, replaced with banal brush strokes of manufactured emotion and the same comedic shtick that’s, frankly, become a little dull now. It feels as if it’s another of his comedy icons Woody Allen, which Gervais is channeling with his latest project, Special Correspondents.
Made exclusively for Netflix, it allowed Gervais complete creative control to write, direct and star in a film about two radio journalists who lie about being in the midst of a political coup in Ecuador, whilst actually hiding in a flat above a Spanish restaurant in Manhattan.
Gervais adopts aspects of Allen’s down-on-his-luck, schlubby everyman without the burden of his intellectual charm or wit. He is joined by Eric Bana, who frankly deserves better (for Chopper alone – or perhaps worse, for Troy…) and Kelly McDonald as his love interest. The jokes fall flat, the drama is forced and insincere and the plot is remarkably uninteresting. It’s a film that, less than 24 hours after viewing, I’m struggling to remember anything positive about.
Whilst the writing is fairly bad, it’s Gervais’ flat, lifeless direction that destroys what little promise the film had, with his own role as an actor only further dragging it down. He goes through his usual routine when it comes to the comedy, and stretches beyond his means with a gunfight as this 100-minute slog draws to its merciful conclusion. It’s a film that belongs in the mid-nineties, lost in a sea of straight-to-video fare and lost to time, not worthy of the transition to DVD.
Worst of all is saved for the closing line, as he and his new love walk towards the sunset, a heavy-handed post-modern nod to the character’s acknowledgement that they’re part of a film. By itself, this would stink, but as the final lap of an already dreary race it is like a bat to the head.
Following from the mediocre Invention of Lying (which wasted an even better cast) and Cemetery Junction, Special Correspondents has made me incredibly weary of the upcoming David Brent film. Stephen Merchant is not involved, which in itself is a worry, and Gervais’ early distancing from the original TV series ever more so. If Special Correspondents is anything to go by, fans of The Office should be very worried indeed.
Special Correspondents is available on Netflix now.
Special Correspondents Trailer
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