Ironically, Gervais's resuscitation of his David Brent character, both his money-maker and cross to bear, is as much a self-directed and produced vanity project for an ageing comedian in a rut as Brent's decision to pay a bunch of young musicians to go out on tour with him to allow him to indulge a pipe dream away from his sales rep job. And about as pointful. It doesn't really qualify as a real film, being more a continuation of
The Office except with all the other characters of interest from the TV series removed, and along with that both more diverse sounding boards and contrasts to the excesses of Brent and quality control too. All that the supporting cast get to do is roll their eyes endlessly as Brent launches into yet another inexorably gaffe-bound ramble. It's not that these can't still produce the occasional smirk or guffaw at how cringeworthy they become, but that over one and a half hours they become mechanical repetition: there is nothing else here but watching a sad little man digging a grave for himself over and over again.
The recent Alan Partridge film largely managed to avoid the pitfalls of over-familiarity with the similarly embarrassing character by still remembering to have a story and other funny personae around him too. If Gervais can't or won't take a leaf from that book, perhaps it's time to call it a day.
4/10
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