Special Correspondents
Director: Ricky Gervais
Year Released: 2016
Rating: 1.0
Rogue radio 'journalist' Frank (Eric Bana) and his assistant Ian (Ricky Gervais) are supposed to travel to Quito, Ecuador to cover a conflict, except Ian accidentally throws out their travel documentation and they're forced to 'fake' the reports from the safety of a New York apartment (above a restaurant); prior to this, Frank had an affair with Ian's wife (Vera Farmiga). While I realize this is a "low-budget" affair - Gervais' character says so at the end, walking off with his true soul-mate Claire (Kelly Macdonald) - it lacks the scorn and sarcasm Gervais is known for, offering a weak slap at opportunism and a lack of journalistic integrity: fittingly, he even casts himself as a pathetic action-figure collecting lump (Farmiga, instead, is the cunning one). Was Stephen Merchant too busy to lend a hand...?
