‘Becoming Bond’ or — The Funniest “Bond” Film Ever Made?

I’d put off watching Josh Greenbaum’s George Lazenby documentary ‘Becoming Bond’ (2017) because I wasn’t sure I wanted sit through 90 minutes of talking-head interviews and even though ‘OHMSS’ (1969) is my favourite Bond film, how interesting could George Lazenby’s life have been?

And this is your typical interview film with Lazenby recalling his life story to an Errol Morris-style Interrotron (a two-way device that allows the subject to talk directly to camera) all the way from his poor upbringing in Australia to used car-salesman then male-model until he finally becomes Bond. It’s a similar format to 2015’s ‘De Palma’ with Lazenby interviewed over the course of four days. So far, no surprises.

Lazenby comes across very much as you’d expect from his image and reputation — he’s confident, arrogant, charming, honest, smarmy, hypersexual, unsophisticated, uncultured, blokey, sensitive, insensitive, adolescent, likable, violent and naive. It’s a potentially off-putting combination especially as Lazenby is so completely open about his outrageous exploits that his story, and he himself, could very easily turn him into a somewhat tragic figure who can’t think beyond his own penis.

However, Greenbaum’s stroke of genius (and it is a stroke of genius) is to ameliorate Lazenby’s rough-edges (and also to exploit and mock them!) by dramatising the episodes of his life as he recounts them. To achieve this Greenbaum casts actors who look comedically nothing like who they are meant to be, thus magnifying the artifice of it all. Josh Lawson plays fictionalised George Lazenby and he looks absolutely nothing like George Lazenby to the point it’s automatically hilarious, especially as Lawson also makes Lazenby more Alan Partridge than James Bond. It’s an incredibly effective, and very funny, way of commenting on Lazenby’s behaviour, his exaggerations, and the artifice of documentary as well as the overly masculine nature of the Bond films themselves. This turns the entire movie into a seriously funny full-blown meta-satire, and I was not expecting that.

There are some extraordinarily laugh-out loud scenes including Lazenby attempting to make love to a woman whilst suffering from explosive diarrhea, getting covered in baby piss and the moment when Lazenby and his friends attempt to figure out the meaning of the word “platonically”. And the film doesn’t hold back! Lazenby is totally open about his life stories and the film takes him on his own terms and doesn’t shy away from reflecting these tales back at him in all their silliness and idiocy.

Of course, it’s all leading up to Lazenby landing the role of Bond, but with all the ground covered before hand of us getting to know Lazenby so intimately that when it does happen the massive shock on British society of this uncouth Aussie car-salesman landing the crown jewel in British cinema is palpable and, again, incredibly funny. And, best of all, we find ourselves rooting for Lazenby. The film might be lampooning the hell out of him but it’s also seriously affectionate which, again, just makes everything funnier. Not that it’s all skewering as there are moments of heart-break, loss, excess and regret but these are all integrated well into the over-riding sense of outrageous fun so ‘Becoming Bond’ never gets too heavy.

‘Becoming Bond’ is a great documentary but, more importantly, it’s also an extremely entertaining movie, and if you’re a fan of James Bond and ‘OHMSS’ then there’s some excellent deep-cut gags that are absolute blinders (I particularly loved Adamo Palladino as short-tempered director Peter Hunt). Lazenby tells his story with brazen openness whilst Greenbaum and his team lovingly, and hilariously, comment back on everything he tells us.

This is one of the funniest films I’ve seen this year and one of the most pleasant surprises and what makes it even more endearing is that I can’t imagine, in a million years, any of the other Bonds — Brosnan, Craig and DEFINITELY not Connery — ever allowing themselves to be sent-up in such a brutally open and naked way. He might not have been seen as the best Bond but Lazenby’s life has easily delivered the best Bond documentary.