Right ok time for another review (which is the whole point of this blog after all!) and this is one on Alpha Papa, the Alan Partridge film based on the TV series character, starring Steve Coogan, which has been recently released in the pics, which I went to see earlier this week. So let's have a look at it....
The story begins with Alan (Coogan) a radio DJ at Norwich Norfolk Digital, and the radio station is being bought over by a multinational coporation and will rebranded as "Shape" with the staff facing redundancies. Alan is not concerned by the changes but his fellow DJ Pat Farrell (Colm Meaney) is worried that he will lose his job and he asks Alan to gatecrash a board meeting. However Alan soon finds out that it will be either him or Pat that will get the sack, so Alan decides to betray Pat and writes up on a flipchart "JUST SACK PAT", and as a result Pat is let go. Later that night the station host a party of the launch of "Shape" and Alan attends with his assistant Lynne (Felicity Montagu) but later on Pat arrives with a shotgun and holds the staff hostage. Alan manages to run out the station before Pat can get to him, and Alan reports the incident at the local police station. The police then want Alan to go back into the radio station to negotiate with Part, wearing a bullet proof vest. And from here Alan is put in a difficult situation of trying to reason with old DJ friend and try and end the hostage seige.
In taking Alan Partridge to the big screen, Alpha Papa does succeed fairly well in making the transition and character wise Alan is pretty much the same arrogant, egocentric, pompous man that he was in the TVseries. The only problem however is in making the transition that the film is quite padded at times, and that was why it worked best as TV series with six tight half hour shows as opposed to one 90 minute film. Alan Partridge despite the fact he is supposed to be 55 years of age, looks closer in age to Steve Coogan (who is currently 48) and dress wise it looks like Alan is trying to be far younger than his character (perhaps it is just another midlife crisis??) as he wears a leather jacket and jeans for the party Also in the TV format of the show things worked better than here, as Alan would encounter rather trivial but very amusing moments with the characters, whereas with Alpha Papa it focuses more on making a melodrama of the situation and Alan's betrayal of Pat and the ensuing hostage crisis. And for the sake of its big screen Partridge debut, it has to turn up the drama stakes somewhat and it also at times guilty of being a bit sentimental, with Alan and Pat reminiscing over their halcyon days on the radio together. So in this regard for me its always a problem with a cinematic version of TV characters, its almost like you need to have a Richard Curtis moment in there a la Notting Hill or Four Weddings to try and tug the heart strings and warm to the public, and with Alan Partridge it doesn't quite work.
However despite that Alpha Papa has plenty of funny moments in it and the cast are all excellent, especially Steve Coogan as Alan, who once again plays Alan to perfection. Coogan has many highlights and funny lines, one of my favourite is after playing a Neil Diamond track on the radio he says "You can keep Jesus Christ. That was Neil Diamond, truly the king of the jews!". Alan's other funny moments include the scene at the start where one of the young upcoming DJs at the station play Roachford's 80s hit single "Cuddly toy" and Alan grooves away to it in his car! Also the scene where Alan walks outside the radio station while on the phone to Lynn, realising he should be back inside, he tries to creep in through an open top window, but he get's his trousers caught in it and he ends up having them pulled them off along with his underpants, and then a policeman turns, telling Alan to get his hands up, and he tucks his genitals in before he does so, with a cameraman peering over a wall right behind him! And in another funny scene during the seige Pat beats up the station manager Jason Cresswell (played by Nigel Lindsay) after he discovers that he has deleted his jingles, and Alan who fills in for him during a live broadcast puts on the theme from "Ski Sunday" while the staff shout and scream in panic in the background behind them.
Colm Meaney delivers a nice performance as the downtrodden Pat who mourns the loss of his wife and also his job, who puts himself in a dangerous situation by taking the radio staff hostage. Meaney has a funny scene where he demands the staff create him a new jingle for his show, which the staff and Alan record, which is a hilarious jingle that speaks out on Pat's anger on being screwed over, and Meaney replies "Its beautiful!". Simon Greenhall is again hilarious as Michael, Alan's dimwitted friend, who is now a doorman at the station, and he has quite a few funny moments in the film, especially during the crisis they find him locked in a cupboard and he admits to have taken a shit in his lunchbox! Felicity Montagu is also great again as Lynne, Alan's aide who is forever at his beckon call and she has a funny scene where a TV journalist asks her to be interviewed on TV and offers her make-up, and we see Lynn all done up, which is priceless in itself!
So believe it or not that's it for my look at Alpha Papa, which is a very funny and entertaining big screen transition of one of British comedy's funniest characters. It may feel a bit padded out at times and the depiction of Alan isn't exactly keeping with the style we had seen of him in the TV show, as it looks more like Steve Coogan just doing Alan Partidge as opposed to being Alan Partridge (i.e. make-up wise). However if you can forgive that there is much to enjoy in the film.
And on that note, I shall leave you there. A-haaaaa!!!
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