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Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

(2013)

Heresy though It may be, I’ve never been the greatest Alan Partridge fan. Maybe it’s just that I’m lukewarm on Steve Coogan, a comedian who can be very funny but you’d be hard-pressed to describe as personable. Partidge worked best for me back in The Day Today, when he was part of an ensemble. While his solo outings raised a smile I could take him or leave him, which is why I wasn’t in a huge hurry to see this mobilisation to the big screen. What’s most surprising is how successful a transition it is; not in terms of scale, since involving Alan in an international spy ring would be the kind of buffoonery to be expected from a Rowan Atkinson persona. Rather, in terms of plot; there’s more than enough here for 90 minutes, and it doesn’t feel as if Partridge has been stretched beyond his limits.

Declan Lowrey makes his feature debut, having plied his trade on TV (including Father Ted, Little Britain and a number of other Coogan collaborations). Despite shooting widescreen he doesn’t utilise the frame in an especially grand matter, but that seems part of the point; this is a siege movie set in Norfolk.

Maybe it’s down to the demands of movie demographics, but there’s definitely a sense that Alan has been reconceived as a more traditional protagonist. Sure, he is instrumental in causing the siege when he persuades his new bosses to sack fellow North Norfolk Digital DJ Pat Farrell (Colm Meaney). Since Alan’s is the other name on the list, it’s inevitable (“Sack Pat!”). But he’s also given a taste of heroism brought on by ego (the crowds, the publicity) and even a love interest. Alan’s still inept, self-serving, objectionable, but he’s also a more palatable version of Alan, right down to the subtler make-up (he was surely in his mid-‘50s when Coogan was making I’m Alan Partridge, the age he is here, and he looks younger in Alpha Papa). Alan doesn’t shit himself for very long at the prospect of being sent into the hostage situation as a mediator and soon enough he’s exchanging gags with a police officer over favourite sieges (“Iranian Embassy”). If I were an aficionado, I might level the accusation that the character has been sold out, and consequently it may be the sanitised Alan I’m responding to in enjoying this so much.

I would have said there wasn’t much left to mine in the piss-taking of crap DJs. Smashy and Nicey about had it covered, but as a side dish, as it is here, the subject feels almost rejuvenated. Alan’s introductions (“soft rock cocaine enthusiasts Fleetwood Mac”), his music choices (“This is the theme from Ski Sunday”), his banter with sidekick Simon (Tim Key; “Never, never criticise Muslims. It’s only Christians. And Jews, a little bit”), the irritating young upstart breakfast DJs. Once Pat and Alan are co-presenting, in-siege, the incongruity really helps the material to fly. Whether it’s unwelcome phone-in guests (“Kill them all, Pat, and shoot the women first!”) or Alan playing to the gathered crowd like they’re a road show audience, the writers have hit on a very solid premise. And Meaney delivers just the right level of straight man playing, allowing Coogan to run off with all the best lines. Sure, some of the choices are very obvious (bonding over youtube video “Fat woman falls down hole”), but for the most part this is lively and engaging, and there are a number of laugh-out-loud sequences.

In particular, Alan miming to Roachford’s Cuddly Toy is sublime, The scene where he loses his trousers and pants (“What are you doing? It’s weird”) has become something of an instant classic. I probably laughed most at anti-terrorist unit’s response to a suspect package that comes flying out of an open window (“I’m really sorry. I done a shit in the box”). The gag of a tiny British version of a big Hollywood climax goes all the way back to Father Ted’s Speed-on-a-milk-float, and the spirit lives on with a road show bus chase and a shoot-out on Cromer Pier. Alan’s escape from said bus is especially inventive (“It’s a septic tank”). It’s probably fair to say I found the toilet humour funniest, but the Partridge movie is just as amusing when it takes in random targets; Alan getting carried away with Nazi-esque glove action (“Schweine!”), his response to Angela finishing his poem (“Why would a sock be on the moor?”) and encounter with death (“Hallo, Mr Seagull. Have you come to take my spirit away?”)

Alpha Papa did sufficiently sterling business that a sequel has already been announced. It looks like it will arrive in time for Alan’s 25^th anniversary celebrations in 2016. No plot details have been announced, but it would be little surprise if they devise a scenario plunging Partridge into another life or death crisis. Alan as a drug mule?

***1/2

You were this amazing occidental samurai.

Ricochet (1991) (SPOILERS) You have to wonder at Denzel Washington’s agent at this point in the actor’s career. He’d recently won his first Oscar for Glory , yet followed it with less-than-glorious heart-transplant ghost comedy Heart Condition (Bob Hoskins’ racist cop receives Washington’s dead lawyer’s ticker; a recipe for hijinks!) Not long after, he dipped his tentative toe in the action arena with this Joel Silver production; Denzel has made his share of action fare since, of course, most of it serviceable if unremarkable, but none of it comes near to delivering the schlocky excesses of Ricochet , a movie at once ingenious and risible in its plot permutations, performances and production profligacy.

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

Well, something’s broke on your daddy’s spaceship.

Apollo 13 (1995) (SPOILERS) The NASA propaganda movie to end all NASA propaganda movies. Their original conception of the perilous Apollo 13 mission deserves due credit in itself; what better way to bolster waning interest in slightly naff perambulations around a TV studio than to manufacture a crisis event, one emphasising the absurd fragility of the alleged non-terrestrial excursions and the indomitable force that is “science” in achieving them? Apollo 13 the lunar mission was tailor made for Apollo 13 the movie version – make believe the make-believe – and who could have been better to lead this fantasy ride than Guantanamo Hanks at his all-American popularity peak?

I can’t be the worst. What about that hotdog one?

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) (SPOILERS) It would have been a merciful release, had the title card “ The End ”, flashing on screen a little before the ninety-minute mark, not been a false dawn. True, I would still have been unable to swab the bloody dildoes fight from my mind, but at least Everything Everywhere All at Once would have been short. Indeed, by the actual end I was put in mind of a line spoken by co-star James Wong in one of his most indelible roles: “ Now this really pisses me off to no end ”. Or to put it another way, Everything Everywhere All at Once rubbed me up the wrong which way quite a lot of most of the time.

We’ve got the best ball and chain in the world. Your ass.

Wedlock (1991) (SPOILERS) The futuristic prison movie seemed possessed of a particular cachet around this time, quite possibly sparked by the grisly possibilities of hi-tech disincentives to escape. On that front, HBO TV movie Wedlock more than delivers its FX money shot. Elsewhere, it’s less sure of itself, rather fumbling when it exchanges prison tropes for fugitives-on-the-run ones.

Drank the red. Good for you.

Morbius (2022) (SPOILERS) Generic isn’t necessarily a slur. Not if, by implication, it’s suggestive of the kind of movie made twenty years ago, when the alternative is the kind of super-woke content Disney currently prioritises. Unfortunately, after a reasonable first hour, Morbius descends so resignedly into such unmoderated formula that you’re left with a too-clear image of Sony’s Spider-Verse when it lacks a larger-than-life performer (Tom Hardy, for example) at the centre of any given vehicle.

He’ll regret it to his dying day, if ever he lives that long.

The Quiet Man (1952) (SPOILERS) The John Wayne & John Ford film for those who don’t like John Wayne & John Ford films? The Quiet Man takes its cues from Ford’s earlier How Green Was My Valley in terms of, well less Anglophile and Hibernophile and Cambrophile nostalgia respectively for past times, climes and heritage, as Wayne’s pugilist returns to his family seat and stirs up a hot bed of emotions, not least with Maureen O’Hara’s red-headed hothead. The result is a very likeable movie, for all its inculcated Oirishness and studied eccentricity.

So, you’re telling me that NASA is going to kill the President of the United States with an earthquake?

Conspiracy Theory (1997) (SPOILERS) Mel Gibson’s official rehabilitation occurred with the announcement of 2016’s Oscar nominations, when Hacksaw Ridge garnered six nods, including Mel as director. Obviously, many refuse to be persuaded that there’s any legitimate atonement for the things someone says. They probably weren’t even convinced by Mel’s appearance in Daddy’s Home 2 , an act of abject obeisance if ever there was one. In other circles, though, Gibbo, or Mad Mel, is venerated as a saviour unsullied by the depraved Hollywood machine, one of the brave few who would not allow them to take his freedom. Or at least, his values. Of course, that’s frequently based on alleged comments he made, ones it’s highly likely he didn’t. But doesn’t that rather appeal to the premise of his 23-year-old star vehicle Conspiracy Theory , in which “ A good conspiracy theory is an unproveable one ”?

He doesn’t want to lead you. He just wants you to follow.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) (SPOILERS) The general failing of the prequel concept is a fairly self-evident one; it’s spurred by the desire to cash in, rather than to tell a story. This is why so few prequels, in any form, are worth the viewer/reader/listener’s time, in and of themselves. At best, they tend to be something of a well-rehearsed fait accompli. In the movie medium, even when there is material that withstands closer inspection (the Star Wars prequels; The Hobbit , if you like), the execution ends up botched. With Fantastic Beasts , there was never a whiff of such lofty purpose, and each subsequent sequel to the first prequel has succeeded only in drawing attention to its prosaic function: keeping franchise flag flying, even at half-mast. Hence Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore , belatedly arriving after twice the envisaged gap between instalments and course-correcting none of the problems present in The Crimes of Grindelwald .

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

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