Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan) works at a radio station which is under new management. When Pat (Colm Meany) takes hostages after he got fired (at Alan's suggestion, though Meany doesn't know that), Alan Partridge is asked to try and reason with his ex-co-worker. Instead, he tries to make a big name for himself.
Knowing nothing of the movie going in, I thought it was going to be mostly Alan trying to save the radio station, but it's not that at all. Coogan plays Partridge as entirely self-absorbed. He doesn't know Pat's wife passed a few years earlier. He drags his housekeeper to the radio station party just to keep him away from the sausage rolls, then sends her off in a taxi as soon as he figures she's in the way.
He's always got to be the center of attention, so he's always trying to be glib, or funny, or mention some bit of trivia that will make people notice him. Even when he's trying to get everyone to work together and make a jingle so the new boss doesn't get killed, he wastes time with a personal anecdote that glorifies himself (the jingle is very well done, however.) He doesn't need conversation, connection, or feedback. He just needs their eyes on him.
The movie takes plenty of opportunities to humiliate him, though. it's the only option left with a character this self-serving and two faced. Assuming you aren't going to kill him, anyway. (He doesn't die.) He locks himself out of the station and then loses his pants while trying to climb in a window. Once Pat figures out the truth, they end up in a chase sequence on a boardwalk, and Partridge make a complete fool of himself.
I didn't feel all that bad or worried for the other characters, though. Either Pat had already passed up some many chances to actually kill them I didn't feel they were in danger, or the movie's too focused on Alan (which he would no doubt approve of) to really care about them. I feel like I should have felt more strongly about Pat's plight, but I didn't.
2 comments:
Huh. So Alan is a character Coogan has played since at least the early 1990s and is by far his most popular creation, which has been something Coogan has hated in the past, although he embraces Alan now.
Given that background, it's funny to think of the film as being someone's first (and only?) experience of Alan, but I suppose it must have been for many!
Yeah, I had no clue this was a preexisting character, but I've only seen Coogan in, Tropic Thunder, and his bit part in Hot Fuzz. Probably a few other thing.
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