Love him or hate him, you have to give credit to Ricky Gervais for breaking into the US mainstream movie making business. Few make it into big budget feature movies let alone in the starring role. The Invention of Lying not only see him reach the dizzy heights of being the lead with a wonderful supporting cast (including Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe and Jonah Hill) to back him up, he also co-directs the movie alongside Matthew Robinson.
‘The Invention of Lying’ as a title pretty much tells you the plot of the movie. Gervais’ character, Mark Bellison lives in a world where no-one is capable of telling a lie, that is of course until Bellison ‘invents’ when walking into a bank and asks for more money than he has in his account with rather humorous consequences. It is nice to see a story that isn’t a remake and has a bit of originality in it finally make it to production.
Notice I used the word humorous above; which I think sums the movie up. At no point is it laugh out loud funny and although the premise seems like a good one, and in my opinion starts off well, it peaks within the first 30 minutes when we get to see what a world with no lies, sarcasm or dishonesty would be like. From that point on, the plot gets a bit ridiculous although seeing Rowe Lowe taking the micky out of himself, Jennifer Garner delivering some excellent lines and Jonah Hill playing the same character that he has in all of his previous movies, had some more glimmers of hilarity.
Ricky Gervias did a very good job directing this movie but if you’ve seen The Office or Ghost Town, Gervais’ character is the same person as the previous roles yet again. I don’t necessarily mind as I quite enjoy watching him and seeing his name on a bill will make me want to watch it but as I opened with, I’m a lover of Gervais’ work where as I know a lot of people aren’t – I guess he’s a bit like Marmite!
This DVD is one to get for a rainy day afternoon and you may even put it on for a second watch to see some of the funny lines delivered in this overly honest world but I don’t think it’s going to win any awards.
You can see the trailer for The Invention of Lying Below or head over to Amazon to buy it or download it from iTunes here. (release date February 1st 2010).
