David Brent: Life On The Road, Cineworld Poole, Odeon ***

OUR pleasure is Ricky Gervais’ self-inflicted pain in David Brent: Life On The Road, a toe-curling faux documentary comedy that catches up with the politically incorrect title character as he embarks on a quest for musical nirvana with his band, Foregone Conclusion.

Life and art are blurred in Gervais’ script, which plays like a cover version of his award-winning TV series The Office, replete with a wince-inducing scene of dad dancing that is supposed to attract the fairer sex.

“I’m no lothario, but he is the worst person around women I have ever seen,” confesses a pitying band mate.

Without The Office co-writer Stephen Merchant to rein in his self-indulgence behind the camera, Gervais puts his middle-aged misfit centre stage for every excruciating set piece, including a heartfelt and hilariously misguided rendition of Please Don’t Make Fun Of The Disableds.

Consequently, some of the supporting players are thinly sketched and a gossamer thin romantic subplot is almost surplus to requirements.

David Brent: Life On The Road is peppered with uproarious one-liners and moments of skin-crawling brilliance that confirm Gervais as a master of unflattering observation.

Music performances include the stand-out track Native American and a reprise of the 2013 Comic Relief song, Equality Street.

Lights Out (15) ABC, Cineworld Poole **

IN 2013, Swedish filmmaker David F Sandberg released a terrifying short entitled Lights Out, which sent trickles of cold sweat down the spine.

The central premise of a malevolent creature, which lurks in the shadows and can only be glimpsed when you plunge a room into darkness, tapped into that primal fear of monsters lurking in wardrobes or under the bed.

In the case of Sandberg’s delicious three-minute surge of adrenaline, the monster was real and extremely menacing.

Three years later, those 180 nerve-shredding seconds have been confidently expanded into a genuinely scary feature about the corrosive effect of mental illness on one suburban family.

Sandberg remains at the helm and in a neat touch, the star of the short film - Lotta Losten - makes a brief appearance in the diabolical pre-credits sequence that will have audiences jumping out of their seats as they nervously realise a pitch black auditorium would be the perfect hunting ground for the film’s merciless antagonist.

Pray you make it to the concessions stand alive.

Don’t let the bed bugs bite.

Nine Lives (PG) Cineworld Poole, Odeon *

A SELF-ABSORBED, workaholic real estate mogul learns an overdue lesson in family priorities while trapped inside the body of his 11-year-old daughter's cat in Barry Sonnenfeld's mangy caper.

Nine Lives possesses all of the charm of a tray of pungent kitty litter that hasn’t been changed for weeks.

The sickly stench of cloying sentiment wafts from every misguided frame, and five screenwriters clumsily mash together subplots in order to engineer a preposterous, yet heart-warming, finale that sticks in the throat like a giant hairball.

It’s anything but the cat’s whiskers, even with a tongue-in-cheek supporting performance from Christopher Walken as a mystical pet shop owner, who sets the tomcatfoolery in motion.

Nine Lives is a supernatural yarn in the vein of Freaky Friday and Big, without the charm or emotional wallop of those enduring family favourites.

Me-ouch!