38
Ricky Gervais's film hopscotches through a variety of premises, looking for jokes that never arrive.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
40
[Gervais] abandons all sharp edges and serves up a bland, toothless picture that isn’t particularly scathing and doesn’t have anything much to say, even though the basic premise might have allowed for some satirical jabs at journalism and politics.
33
Special Correspondents is more about smirking sideways than it is laughing out loud, but it doesn't provoke much of either — it's one thing for Gervais to subdue his usual bark, but his bite has never been softer.
70
New York Daily News by Edward Douglas
Some viewers may be surprised by how good Bana is doing comedy. Same with Farmiga, but that allows Gervais to leave some of the heavier lifting as far as acting to his co-stars. Gervais has again done a solid job writing and directing his own material.
70
Screen International by Graham Fuller
Perversely pleasurable, it works on its own self-conscious terms, though not all audiences will appreciate its English brand of sad-sack humour.
42
The A.V. Club by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
The more Special Correspondents skirts bad taste — by having the heroes record an ISIS-inspired ransom tape, for instance — the closer it gets to having something to say about mass media and geopolitics.
30
The Hollywood Reporter by Keith Uhlich
It's never fun watching a comedian's shrewdness ossify into shtick. Yet whatever incisiveness Ricky Gervais once had (and he had plenty, if The Office and Extras are any indication) is barely evident in the new Netflix-released satire Special Correspondents
42
Entertainment Weekly by Kevin P. Sullivan
What Gervais may have previously turned into a pointed satire of the news media instead becomes a flimsy farce that’s surprisingly low on laughs.
40
Gervais’ tale is primarily consumed with middle-of-the-road squabbling between its headliners, whose yin-yang chemistry never results in more than a few chuckle-worthy bon mots.
40
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
Special Correspondents shows that Gervais has a plausible Hollywood career, but there’s a baffling lack of real laughs and performance chemistry between the leads, and very little of the acid characterisation and cynical discomfort which is vital to his screen presence.