Gervais is not in top form, but he plays humble Albert character well. The movie isn't anything special really, but aside from Gervais it's the rest of the cast that keeps it firm upright. I laughed out loud a few times, and was otherwise snickering for most of the time. It's harmless little movie, that I had a very good time with it. The film has an interesting plot with some nice parody in it, but it never becomes something a classic funny film all together. It's difficult to keep comedy up for a film's run time, and special correspondents shows that as well. There's nothing remarkable about Gervais the director in this film, but together with Bana as the leading man and a good supporting cast it's worth a watch.

B

Special Correspondents

It's a decent film, but this will become the "forgotten Gervais" in years to come. Firstly; it took a backdoor in distribution and went straight to Netflix, and secondly; it is just not a straight-up comedy. It is funny in parts and has a comedic plot, but it has scenes of fear, action, drama, and at its heart it is a story of tragedy/love. It's not very deep at all, which is why it is first and foremost still a comedy, but it's really quite a low-key, subdued affair for a Ricky Gervias production.

I liked it because I like anything that Gervais is in, but it seems that he was very inspired by Derek (which actually I didn't get into), in so much that he aims to evoke sympathy more than in his other film roles - and his character has a full enough and interesting enough story. The cast is brilliant. America Ferrera and Raúl Castillo are the obvious comedic standouts, and they work very well. But Eric Bana, for me, was kind of hilarious in his own brash and sauve way.

Funnily, Gervais did re-use a joke that he uses in his stand-up, which I thought was a tad lazy, but the rest of the material is fresh.

B

You certainly paid attention! His character's name is Ian.

Whups