Critic Reviews

For its majority, the film is all comedic and political fire, but as its winds down, Timoner rounds it off with a tone of melancholic, tragic inevitability to Brand’s life.

The extensive two-hour running time only slightly hinders a simultaneously amusing and powerful encapsulation of Brand's journey from outrageous provocateur to enlightened zealot preaching for social change.

Timoner’s often-compelling documentary, which is neither an apology nor a hagiography, is an intriguing personal take on a man who turns out to be endlessly intriguing, no matter what you think of his antics.

Even if you’re cynical about Brand’s motives, or just think that he’s a bit of berk, the film convinces you of the almost alarming sincerity of his political mission.

Timoner refuses to run fully with Brand’s elevated idea of himself, preferring to offer glimpses of a vulnerability and ruthlessness behind the clownish bluster.

A thoroughly entertaining doc that serves also as a primer on Brand's shockingly successful comedy career and an introduction to his singular personality.

Brand: A Second Coming is never dull, moving at a busy clip appropriate to its seemingly tireless globe-trotting protagonist.

Whether you agree with his system-damning rhetoric or see him as no better than anyone else in our clogged punditocracy, Brand: A Second Coming is, if not a careful portrait, at least an orgy of personality.

Brand: A Second Coming is messy, muddled and occasionally maddening; it’s also a strong and stirring portrait of a funnyman who’s realized that some things just aren’t that funny.

Though it includes parts of a live comedy performance, the film is a documentary with an attention span about as long as its subject's.