Rating: C+
David Brent: Life on the Road follows David Brent (Ricky Gervais) from The Office and his newfound existence as the lead singer of his band “Foregone Conclusion”.
The whole movie is basically like “remember how David makes really questionable jokes? Here’s two hours of that.” All of the genuinely funny parts of the film are in the trailer (all three of them). I’m not really sure what else to say about this film since the whole thing is just David Brent being pathetic and tragic and people bullying him and not explaining why the things he says are awkward and problematic. Maybe this kind of humour just hasn’t aged as well, I used to find The Office really funny when it came out but watching it now and watching a movie based on the same type of cringe comedy, it feels a bit dated. I think I uttered “oh my god” more times than I laughed, which is never a good sign.
One part I actually enjoyed was the ending. It was really sweet and the bullying of David eventually stops and his problematic quirks are sort of appreciated in the end. I almost felt like crying genuine tears of sadness at the faux wholesomeness of it (but I didn’t). The film even ends with a Christmas song just to make you feel really emotional for about two seconds.
The only redeeming factor overall is the really cute Doc Brown who plays David’s touring mate Dom, as essentially the only likeable character in the film.