DVD reviews: The Invention of Lying | Sin Nombre

Published on Thursday 28 January 2010 18:03

THE INVENTION OF LYING Universal, £19.99 SIN NOMBRE Revolver, £17.99

PROOF that Ricky Gervais hasn't yet found his cinematic feet is in plentiful supply in The Invention of Lying, his debut effort as writer/director (as well as star). If Ghost Town showed how uncomfortable he can look when forced to inhabit the big screen, this shows how unsure of himself he is behind the camera too. A high-concept comedy set in an alternative reality where humans have not only failed to develop the capacity to lie, but are also compelled to tell the truth with alarming frankness, it seems torn between a desire to be hip and cutting-edge and a need to be accessible mainstream entertainment.

As a result it fails to satisfy on either count, possessing neither the visual inventiveness a maverick such as Michel Gondry might have imbued it with, nor the polished-to-perfection genius of Groundhog Day. That's too bad, because it's not without promise. As a lowly writer who learns how to lie, Gervais gets to play with some fun and risqu concepts, including making a case for the importance of lying to creativity, and taking a gentle sideswipe at the stock some people put in absurd religious fables. Unfortunately, he never nails the tone, and neither does he deliver a solid stream of gags that are actually funny.

Things aren't helped by the fact his characters are mostly irritating and contemptuous (especially Jennifer Garner's love interest, who has bizarrely fascistic overtones), and he proceeds to fill the supporting cast with a long, distracting list of celebrity friends. Not great then, though the extras may prove somewhat entertaining if you're a fan of Gervais's pod-casting pal Karl Pilkington, who supplies an amusing video diary of his time as an extra on the film.

Problematic for very different reasons is Sin Nombre, a dubious exploitation film masquerading as a social issue movie. Fted on the festival circuit last year, it's the kind of flick that revels in depictions of gang violence while pretending to condemn it. Indeed, it's hard to work out what's more specious: the way the film expects us to care about a vicious teen thug whose actions are responsible for getting a young girl raped and killed, or the way it expects us to buy into the subsequent love story that evolves between him and the Honduran teen he meets while robbing a group of migrants making the perilous journey to the US.