Nayan Gough
A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
Geraldine
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Michael Ledo
Frank Bonneville (Eric Bana) is a NYC radio correspondent for Q365 News. He normally works with Ian Finch (Ricky Gervais) a sound engineer with an unhappy wife (Vera Farmiga). They get assigned to cover a rebel up rising in Ecuador, however a depressed Ian accidentally tosses their money, tickets, and passports instead of the letter he wrote to his wife. With Frank being on his last leg with the station, they opt to fake their presence in Ecuador while staying in the upstairs room of a Latino restaurant located directly across from the station. Frank manages to give convincing reports with Ian supplying background noise and the restaurant owners yelling out in Spanish.Their celebrity builds. Things get carried away....This is a light comedy that was fun to watch.Guide: F-word (two languages). No sex or nudity.
Kapten Video
It's a Netflix-produced project written and directed by legendary comedy mastermind Ricky Gervais, who also stars alongside Eric Bana. A radio journalist (Bana) and his technician (Gervais) fake their own kidnapping during a rebel uprising in Ecuador and try to hide out in New York instead. Also appearing: Vera Farmiga, Kelly Macdonald, Kevin Pollak, America Ferrera, Raúl Castillo, Benjamin Bratt et al. Like most of Gervais's movies, it's not as sharp and funny as his famous for based on his other works (TV series, standup, podcasts etc). Sadly, it's also nearly not as mainstream friendly as most of his movies which have at least some memorable LOL moments. It's based on a decent idea and the screenplay is competent, but the humor is rather dry and intellectual, making one go „I see what they did here" rather than really enjoying the show. The satirical pokes about the authenticity of modern media business and the worthiness of the stars it creates gives the story at least some extra depth, even if you won't remember it the next morning. Dialogue and acting are competent, too, but we spend most of the time in the company of two men with no palpable chemistry – just doing their work and being professional about it. Always solid Vera Farmiga gives a more juicier performance as a technician's villainous wife but she can't conquer the overall dryness of it all, either. The movie also looks cheap, which is not a problem in itself because the small budget sets its limits. But I have to say it's overall one of the less exciting Gervais projects I've seen. Sorry. At least it doesn't go on for too long, although at 101 minutes it's not exactly short either. And yes, disappointing Gervais is still better than no Gervais at all. IMDb says it's a remake of 2009's French comedy "Envoyés très spéciaux". Both have mediocre user rating but the newer version has a bit higher score (5.8 vs 5.3 out of 10).
sammooney-99658
I must admit, as a huge fan of The Office, Extras and Ricky's stand up, I've become used to deep belly laughs aplenty whenever I watch the work of this great comic, and so before I sat down to watch Special Correspondents I was fully expecting a similar comedic experience. I was wrong.To anyone who plans to watch this movie who has a similar expectation - you may be disappointed. Do not, however, deprive yourself of what is a smart, entertaining movie. Once I accepted that there would only be a few chuckles here and there, I was able to genuinely enjoy Gervais' latest outing. This felt very much like a drama/comedy as opposed to a comedy/drama. There is a great chemistry between Gervais and Bana throughout, and for anyone who enjoys light satire this is definitely well worth a watch. I can't stress enough that if you are expecting tonnes of laugh out loud moments, you simply won't enjoy this movie for what it is, all though for fans of The Office, look out for a moment in the movie where Ian Finch (Gervais) attempts to record a heartfelt plea on video camera to the people of America, where he initially gets his tone and demeanor wrong - for around ten seconds he fully channels Brent. Priceless.
Mathias Dubois
What annoyed me the most in Ricky Gervais' new film is the total lack of subtlety. It really feels like one of these run-of-the mill US-comedies where every joke has to be understandable to any kind of audience, albeit losing its edge, specially when half of the time, it goes along with the most cringe-worthy feature of intellectually undemanding comedies known to mankind: plucked violin strings.The misadventure of a radio journalist and his technician who miss a flight and are compelled to fake the news reports from a war zone could have been so much more in any possible way, specially given the talent of Ricky Gervais when it comes to awkward situations and weird characters. Instead, we are presented the bare minimum of what family-friendly entertainment can be. A certainly watchable, albeit totally forgettable show with cliché characters and situations that seems to be targeted at the more easily amused part of the audience and that omits any quality that has built up the reputation of Mr Gervais in the last 15 or so years.
