Russell Brand is not an easy person to like. The 40-year-old British comic and recovering drug addict and a former Mr Katy Perry is an obnoxious, loud-mouth, narcissistic, vain, self-serving, hedonistic irritating man. He is however side-splittingly funny when he is on stage performing and that is the saving grace of both Brand himself and this intriguing and compelling documentary which serves as another excuse for the man to behave very badly knowing that he has an audience that will probably lap it all up.
There are no redeeming features of Brand’s story that even make him even remotely likable. It starts with his childhood and his
indulgent mother who has to focus of her re-occuring bouts of cancer and his absent father who could only ever focus on himself. Whatever lucky breaks young Russell got he ended up by blowing, like his Drama School Scholarship that he wasted to fuel his growing addiction and that ended up with him getting expelled.
When his stand -up comedy gigs started getting him noticed, his obsession with fame and celebrity and all the trappings it gave really kicked in, and even when he eventually seemed to achieve it all, and way beyond his wildest dreams, it never ever was enough for him. When he was a ‘star’ in the UK, he was bitter that he was still unknown in America, and then when his career took off in the US plus he married singing superstar which rocketed him into celebrity overload, Brand seemed to be more un-fulfilled than ever.
When his short-lived marriage collapsed and his bizarrely erratic behavior made him completely unemployable, Brand’s English manager persuaded the star to commit to rehab before his excessive intake of drugs actually killed him. The treatment worked as far as the fact that he became and remained sober, but it failed to dent his persistent perception that he was the brightest and most wonderful man in the world who deserved so much more than he had.
The latter part of the movie deals with Brand creating his new comedy show which had the same title as this documentary. The comedian somewhat brilliantly and extremely hilariously compared himself with not only Jesus Christ but other saint-like historical figures such as Gandhi, Malcolm X & Che Guevara. The only disturbing aspect was that there is more than a fine line of doubt about Brand actually believing he is a second Messiah.It leads him to wanting to change the world a la Brand. However, when he goes on to take to the airwaves of the world to preach revolution he is very passionate about his principles, but always very light on detail and relies on his quick wit to dismiss anyone who dares to question his reality.
This documentary profile is credited to writer/director Ondi Timoner, but she was in fact the 6th filmmaker to try and film this very unruly subject (even the great Albert Maysles had been on board at one time). It does explain why there are several really odd segments that don’t fit in with the rest and are obviously pieces Timoner inherited such as Brand interviewing people like David Lynch and Mike Tyson (!) about spirituality. By the time filming was wrapping up, Brand had a such a large falling out with Timoner by the end that he tried to get the movie withdrawn from the SWSX Festival where it had been scheduled to premiere.
Brand’s legions of fans are in the millions according to the hits he gets with his online presence and they will no doubt lap up every single minute of this movie, but there are others who will be like Jeremy Paxman the distinguished British TV Journalist who just simply questioned why anybody would want to listen to this ‘very silly man’.
Labels: 2015, biography, documentary
