Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa - Cinema Half-Review

A film debut for Steve Coogan’s most successful character has been a long time in the works, and he, along with Armando Iannucci have finally decided to make their move in 2013. Potential pitfalls of an Alan Partridge movie are deftly sidestepped with a plot straight from Alan’s action movie fantasies. Pat Farrell is the film’s antagonist and Alan’s ex-colleague who takes his involuntary resignation particularly badly; to the extent that he arms himself and takes the radio station hostage. This interesting set-up allows the character to shine without resting the entire film’s structure on his shoulders.

The film gets into things surprisingly quickly, with a brief set-up of Alan’s current career in radio and the threat of takeover from another company, followed by the siege scenario erupting from within. Classic Partridge behaviour is merged near-seamlessly with action in an amusingly cramped domestic British setting.

There’s a variety to the humour and it will likely appeal to most audiences, though I think the majority of them will be long-term partridge fans as opposed to newcomers. I’d like to be wrong however as the film does an admirable job of balancing accessible laughs with a relatively tense atmosphere. There are a few lulls towards the later part of the film where it’s possible to lose interest but it sparks up again for the finale.

Pleasantly, context is only likely to make such images funnier.

Familiar characters like Lynn and Michael are more than simple cameo appearances, yet the film doesn’t rely too heavily on running jokes or old character interactions. It blends the old and the new fairly evenly ensuring a wide appeal to fans and newcomers alike. Overall the film isn’t anything mindblowing but is impressive for a first feature outing for the character. The humour will depend largely on your tastes as to whether it’s amusing or side-splitting, personally I was somewhere in between but I’m miserable so take that how you will. 

It’s here I realise that a good comedy film primarily consists of comedy and comedy is highly subjective so there’s little else I can say about Alpha Papa. If you’re a partridge fan you’ll likely enjoy it and even if you’re not, there are much worse films currently showing you could subject your eyeballs to.