20 Worst Movies Of 2016
18. Special Correspondents
Ricky Gervais is a great comedy writer and a wonderful tragicomic actor: he has been responsible for the glorious highs of things like Extras, The Office and Derek and his work shaping something genius out of Karl Pilkington deserves a knighthood. Unfortunately, he also makes films.
Bad ones.
He's yet to deliver on his ability on the big screen (with even the David Brent film failing to really capture what made the character so beloved in the first place), with the low point coming this year with this made for Netflix "comedy". Based on a French film, which is much better, incidentally, the adaptation fails to deliver any humour, any likeable characters and any of Gervais' trademark charm.
It's like he's tried to do someone else's work and failed miserably, while trying to live up to Hollywood's troubling expectation that he should play a sort of bumbling victim. Which is absolutely the opposite of what makes even his most pathos-loaded past characters so appealing.