People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan Review

Films based on TV shows are a staple of the British film industry. BBC Three’s People Just Do Nothing is the latest show to get the cinematic treatment.

It has been three years since the Kurupt FM boys have split up and gone their separate ways. During that time one of their songs has been used on a Japanese game show and a record label invite the boys to Tokyo. However, there is a price for success.

Since the success of The Inbetweeners Movie, there has been a flood of films based on British TV shows. Bad Education, Absolutely Fabulous, Spooks, and Dad’s Army all received cinematic adaptation or continuations in the 2010s and all were met with various degrees of success. The height of this boom was in the mid-2010s. Now films based on British TV shows might be coming back.

People Just Do Nothing was a big hit for the BBC – it went from web series to having five seasons on British television. However, People Just Do Nothing seemed like an unlikely candidate for a film adaptation because of its mockumentary format and the series concluded with Kurupt FM shutting down and Grindah (Allan Mustafa) and his family moving to Essex. So, the people behind the show and film had to find a way to continue Kurupt FM’s story. The creators were able to succeed on that front.

The film did feel like a continuation and wasn’t trying to retcon the events of the final season. The film picks up where the final episode left off with Grindah in Essex. Grindah and Beats (Hugo Chegwin) had moved on to proper jobs. So, the deal in Japan was Kurupt FM’s last shot.

The People Just Do Nothing movie also had to stick to the tradition of British films based on the TV show: take the main characters away from their natural environment. The Inbetweeners lads went to Corfu and Australia in their films, Jack Whitehall took his class to Cornwall, and the Ad Fab ladies escaped to the French Rivera. The People Just Do Nothing creators were able to make the trip seem natural since their song was popular in Japan but they were just a novelty act.

People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan kept the same creative team of the show. The main actors were also the writers and Jack Clough who directed all the episodes got to direct the film. This gave the film a sense of consistency. The characters were the same, being loveable dimwits with Decoy (Daniel Sylvester Woolford) rolling his eyes at their stupidity. Steves (Steve Stamp) and Chabuddy (Asim Chaudhry) had the funniest moments in the film because, well, they had the best jokes. Some personal favourites were Steves showing the variety of drugs he was trying to smuggle into Japan, Steves freaking out on the plane, and Chabuddy’s general sense of delusion. Other favourite moments were Miche’s (Lily Brazier) trying to fake a trip to Japan for her Instagram followers and the boys’ reaction to the group’s new name.

This sense of continuity does make People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan felt more like an extended episode. For fans of the show, this is what they would want: why change a winning formula. But due to the mockumentary filming style, People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan didn’t look cinematic, even in the hustle and bustle of the Japanese capital.

Whilst the film kept the style and tone of the show, the setting and story allowed for a change up to the formula. It was a culture clash story because the boys had to experience the weird world of J-Pop. The Japanese characters were bemused by the antics of the boys since they acted strange to them – they were certainly not what Japanese people would expect Englishmen to be.

The other side of the story was the record company trying to turn Kurupt FM into a boy band. Taka (Ken Yamamura) who was the boys’ Japanese manager pushes Chabuddy out and stroked Grindah’s ego so the changes could be enforced. This led to the group splitting up. Grindah has to deal with the stresses from the music industries, Chabuddy being forced out and watching to prove Taka wrong, and the rest of them enjoy their time in Japan. Steves has a nice little subplot where he had a spark with the translator, Miki (Hitomi Sono).

Splitting the group up was a risk because fans like to see them together. There was a risk that the film could repeat Season Four where Grindah was banished by the rest of the group. The filmmakers managed to make it work because Taka was the wrench in the system. It was rewarding when the group reunited.

People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan does make for a nice send-off for Brentford’s finest. It gives the fans what they would want from a film.