Norfolk radio's finest Alan Partridge now has his own action movie – and it's knowing and funny
Alpha Papa, the big-screen debut of Steve Coogan's bumbling local DJ, is a lucky loser of a movie, a Walter Mitty tale in which the wannabe hero keeps reverting to type. The studios of North Norfolk Digital are under siege. A maniacal gunman has the staff held hostage. And yet, in the heat of this crisis, Alan Partridge keeps returning to the microphone to ask his listeners whether a binman can reasonably expect a Christmas tip after he's refused to dispose of a broken toaster. Character is fate, as Heraclitus once said. You can take the man out of Mid-Morning Matters, but you can't stem the tide of his Mid-Morning chatter.
First road-tested more than 20 years ago, Partridge is a Norwich-based DJ and sometime TV presenter who found his natural comedic home on radio and TV. All of which makes him utterly ill-equipped to play the role of hostage negotiator in a majorish motion picture. Alpha Papa is aware of this, insofar as it pokes fun at the conceit without ever quite justifying it. The plot is hubristically high-concept, juggling a vengeful DJ (Colm Meaney), a hard-arse cop (Anna Maxwell Martin) and a corporate Satan (Nigel Lindsay). But the film works best when its focus is tight.
Tellingly, the most pleasurable scene is arguably the simplest: a extended closeup on Partridge as he drives through Norwich, mouthing along to Roachford's Cuddly Toy. Our hero's hair is wafting in the breeze, and his mouth is set in a vain little pout. His eyes, however, flicker with the unease of a man who realises that he is barely getting away with it; who suspects that the world does not see him as he sees himself.
I think that Alpha Papa, by and large, gets away with it. It's knowing and it's funny, and Coogan's persona remains so perfectly realised that he's able to survive when the plot over-reaches and blows out the levels. In the fraught final moments, the film drops its thread and picks it up again. It blathers and it blusters and then comes flopping inelegantly over the finish line, an accidental hero, a winner by default. Maybe that's fitting; possibly even halfway intentional. Alpha Papa is the sort of hit movie only Alan Partridge could make.
Rating: 3/5 Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 hours ago.
Alpha Papa, the big-screen debut of Steve Coogan's bumbling local DJ, is a lucky loser of a movie, a Walter Mitty tale in which the wannabe hero keeps reverting to type. The studios of North Norfolk Digital are under siege. A maniacal gunman has the staff held hostage. And yet, in the heat of this crisis, Alan Partridge keeps returning to the microphone to ask his listeners whether a binman can reasonably expect a Christmas tip after he's refused to dispose of a broken toaster. Character is fate, as Heraclitus once said. You can take the man out of Mid-Morning Matters, but you can't stem the tide of his Mid-Morning chatter.
First road-tested more than 20 years ago, Partridge is a Norwich-based DJ and sometime TV presenter who found his natural comedic home on radio and TV. All of which makes him utterly ill-equipped to play the role of hostage negotiator in a majorish motion picture. Alpha Papa is aware of this, insofar as it pokes fun at the conceit without ever quite justifying it. The plot is hubristically high-concept, juggling a vengeful DJ (Colm Meaney), a hard-arse cop (Anna Maxwell Martin) and a corporate Satan (Nigel Lindsay). But the film works best when its focus is tight.
Tellingly, the most pleasurable scene is arguably the simplest: a extended closeup on Partridge as he drives through Norwich, mouthing along to Roachford's Cuddly Toy. Our hero's hair is wafting in the breeze, and his mouth is set in a vain little pout. His eyes, however, flicker with the unease of a man who realises that he is barely getting away with it; who suspects that the world does not see him as he sees himself.
I think that Alpha Papa, by and large, gets away with it. It's knowing and it's funny, and Coogan's persona remains so perfectly realised that he's able to survive when the plot over-reaches and blows out the levels. In the fraught final moments, the film drops its thread and picks it up again. It blathers and it blusters and then comes flopping inelegantly over the finish line, an accidental hero, a winner by default. Maybe that's fitting; possibly even halfway intentional. Alpha Papa is the sort of hit movie only Alan Partridge could make.
Rating: 3/5 Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 hours ago.