Critic Reviews

Happily, what’s in no short supply is the same mix of uproarious failure and sledgehammer pathos that Brent at his best was always all about.

Both Brent and Gervais give this “one last push” all the love, commitment, determination and fool-hearted dedication they can muster, and it’s good that at least one can come out on top even while the other clings to the bottom.

While Gervais returns often to the same comedic well, he’s adept at transforming simple miscues into horrific spirals of embarrassment.

A late third-act turn into sentimental territory, in which the original show’s misanthropy is sugared up, may feel artificial to viewers drawn to the series’ persistent despairing streak; still, it makes a certain sense given that the film would otherwise entirely lack an emotional arc.

Life on the Road ultimately makes good in a way that few comedy films based on television characters do. Perhaps part of that owes to Gervais’ not-so-subtle, yet still powerful, insights into David Brent.

Being stuck in a cinema with David Brent for 96 minutes can be trying (the lazy ending doesn’t help). But when Gervais is on an improvisational roll, Brent digging himself deeper and deeper into some awful pit of social awkwardness, we can’t help but remember why we love to hate them both.

As a comedy creation, David Brent is still a masterwork, and the film works best when the pathos hits as hard as the punchlines. But Life on the Road should probably be the leaving party we all thought had been thrown a few times already.

It mostly holds together, but you'd have to hope that David Brent: Life on the Road represents the farewell tour.

It’s a rehash that neither develops the character nor betrays him. It simply assumes that we still share his weaknesses and therefore care about the fool.

David Brent remains an enduring comic grotesque, but this sporadically amusing big-screen resurrection is more cash-in reunion tour than killer comeback album.