It was the great Christopher Hitchens who said " Europeans think Americans are fat , vulgar , greedy , stupid , ambitious , ignorant and so on . In Michael Moore they have adopted as someone of their own who actually embodies all these qualities " Cruel but fair and containing a lot of truth . It's true the average European isn't going to be brainwashed in to thinking the average American looks like the casting call of a BAYWATCH episode but more in the way of something from a DOCTOR WHO episode titled Attack Of The Mutant Salad Dodgers . I had to double check ALL YOU CAN EAT wasn't actually a British short film disguised as an American one because the whole feel of this film screams " Euro-centric view " at every turn so I'm guessing in its favour it does deserve some congratulations that Americans can laugh at themselves . Totally awesome dude
That said the satire does seem very forced but I've got to confess I've never been too taken by this type of knowing satire , I didn't even like THIS IS SPINAL TAP so what do I know ? Randy Stormberg is one of these characters who you know all too well from whatever part of the world you're from in that he's larger than life and the soul of the soon party when the cameras are on him , then as soon as the cameras stop filming he's someone else entirely . There's so many TV personalities like that out in the real world and you wonder what someone like Chris Hansen might be getting up to in his days off . Oh hold on ....
Where ALL YOU CAN EAT suffers slightly is like most of these spoof documentaries it tries a little bit too hard to be fly on the wall and spontaneous and it's near impossible to capture the meta-physical concept and reality of a true life documentary . It also instinctively sickens me watching some greedy guts stuffing their fat face at every opportunity ans I'm speaking as someone who is five foot nine inches tall , weighs about 160 pounds and has seen a lot of low grade torture porn cinema . Perhaps the greatest failing is that Randy is so unlikable . I see that's the whole point of the character but when you compare him to our own Alan Patridge he comes across as being a difficult target for making fun of in comparison . Sometimes Brits still lead the way
