Ricky Gervais's David Brent Movie Splits The Critics

Brent is back, and this time it’s personal (hygiene).

‘David Brent: Life On The Road’, Ricky Gervais’s return to his cringeworthy character from ‘The Office’, finds the former paper merchant now a rep for a company peddling cleaning products, while dreaming of hitting the road with his band Foregone Conclusion.

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But the comeback has split the critics.

Henry Barnes, in a two-star review for The Guardian, writes: “At its best it carries the tradition of the little man struggling against his own confines. At its worst – some weak gags about fat people, a couple of moments where Brent’s too stupid for his back story – it’s small, shabby and outdated.

“There were braver things that Gervais could have done with the character. The bravest being leaving him where he was.”

Noting a ‘mean-spiritedness’ in the script, Little While Lies‘ Adam Woodward calls the movie ‘disappointing’.

“It’s just not the same without Gareth, Tim, Dawn, Finchy and the others. Gervais knows it, too,” he adds.

Brian Viner in the Daily Mail was notably unimpressed, writing: “This big-screen ‘mockumentary’ sequel, written and directed by Gervais alone, is a slowly-unfolding disappointment.

“Comic characters conceived for TV very often misfire in the cinema, but there’s an even more worrying development here as the line between Gervais and his embarrassing alter ego, Brent, becomes blurred.”

Jimi Famurewa in Empire, giving the film two stars, remarks that it has the feel of ‘an extended charity sketch’, like those Gervais has made for Comic Relief, which spawned the song ‘Equality Street’.

“’Life on the Road’ can never quite escape unfavourable comparison to that first, unimprovable finale and, in the end, it mostly feels like a faint photocopy of what we’ve seen before,” he adds.

There are positive reviews, however, Sean O’Grady giving the movie four stars in The Independent.

“Like Steve Coogan with Alan Partridge, it is a joy to see an artist so happy in their own skin that they can return to their most amazing creation with no hindrance to their other projects. Fact,” he writes.

But most of the favourable notices seem heavy with caveats.

Matt Glasby in GQ writes: “It’s frustrating, yet the inspired moments, such as the earnest/constipated look on Gervais’ face as he sings, ‘Oooh Native American, fly like an eagle, sit like a pelican’ are priceless.”

In Variety, Catherine Bray calls it a ‘funny, if meandering big-screen adventure’.

Charles Gant in Screen International adds: “Nostalgic fans should squirm to their heart’s content through the consistently entertaining, fitfully inspired Life On The Road.”

‘David Brent: Life On The Road’ is out across the UK on August 19.

Image credits: Entertainment One