The “fearless and audacious” comedy Ricky Gervais called the “most outrageous” movie ever made
Comedy has always been a subjective art form, and Ricky Gervais has spent most of his career either being celebrated as one of his generation’s sharpest comedic minds or being denigrated as an overrated, unfunny, and intentionally antagonistic hack.
Plenty of people won’t hear a bad word about the original iteration of The Office, which elevated its creator from relative obscurity to stardom, and continue to laud it as one of the most important and influential TV shows of the 21st century. On the other hand, many others think it’s shite.
That’s become a recurring trend for Gervais, who continues to split opinion straight down the middle with everything he does, whether it’s a new TV series, a feature film, a stand-up comedy special, or hosting an awards show. Not that he gives a fuck, right enough, as his caustic retorts to criticism have made clear.
He’s a two-time Primetime Emmy, four-time Golden Globe, and seven-time Bafta-winning actor, writer, producer, and stand-up comedian, though, so he’s obviously been doing something right. His big-screen career never quite took off, which might be because he admitted that he turned almost everything down that was offered his way.
The Invention of Lying, Cemetery Junction, and Special Correspondents, the self-created star vehicles that he scripted, directed, and starred in, weren’t very good, so he couldn’t create his own luck in cinema, either. Gervais’ brand of comedy is a specific one, and maybe it doesn’t translate well to feature-length, or perhaps he simply works better in smaller, shorter doses.
As for his own preferences as a viewer, he prefers them nearer the knuckle. In fact, a picture that he saw for the first time during a flight made such an instantaneous impression on him that years later, he was willing to go out on a limb and tell Shortlist that it was the most outrageous thing he’d ever laid eyes on.
“Team America is the most outrageous ‘we don’t give a fuck’ piece of filmmaking I’m aware of,” he said. “I first saw it on a plane, and wanted to stand up and say, ‘Everyone has to watch this! You’re allowed to say this shit. This is what I’ve been telling you!’ I’m a big fan of South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who wrote and directed it.”
It’s fair to say you can add Gervais to the eclectic list of Hollywood’s Team America superfans, which includes Quentin Tarantino, Jodie Foster, Seth Rogen, and Stephen Sondheim, to name four. “You’re laughing because they shouldn’t be saying that shit,” he elaborated. “It’s fearless and audacious.”
Parker and Stone have spent the last three decades not caring who they offend and why they offend them, so a puppet-based actioner that slated everyone and everything from Michael Bay and Matt Damon to the United Nations and North Korea wouldn’t be any different, and it left Gervais completely blown away.
