5/5 Always look on the silly side of faith
  by Muzzlehatch (the walls of Gormenghast)
Three wise men wend their way to a small hut in a small town, 2000 years ago. They are in search of the Messiah and they come bearing gifts...but first they make a small mistake and deliver them to He who is not the Savior, Brian, who happens to be born on the same day, just down the alley from that Jesus fella. Brian grows up a fairly oblivious and apolitical mama's boy, though sadly with less interest in stonings than is proper. Alas, events lead him to work with the People's Front of Judea, the attempted kidnap of Pilate's wife, accidental prophet-hood, and eventual crucifixion to the tune of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life."

The conventional wisdom on LIFE OF BRIAN is that it's the Python crew's most "polished" or "competent" film as a team, and I'd probably agree with that, though I find HOLY GRAIL funnier. It's still scattershot and somewhat inconsistent of course - I for one found the whole Pilate/Biggus Dickus thing a bit overlong, and the alien abduction while fun doesn't really add anything besides giving Terry Gilliam more to do - but it does actually feel like a moderately cohesive film, and of course it takes the typical Python over-the-top methods on attacking organized religion to a point which all but the most humor-challenged Christians ought to be able to admit to at least chuckling over - it's a bit more pointed and narrow in its humor. Of course, the film isn't really anti-Christian, or anti-Jewish, but rather anti-stupid. Maybe that was its biggest problem with some audiences....

Early highlights include the stoning scene and the scene with the ex-leper, but where the film really takes off in my mind is when Brian becomes an accidental prophet. It seems to be channeling or ripping off HOLY GRAIL at first - smart, articulate Brian being completely misunderstood by the idiot peasants, just exactly as Bedevere in the earlier film presiding over the witch's trial - but the brilliance with which Brian quickly goes from being just another hairy crazed prophet (reminiscent naturally of street-corner shouters even today) to being followed all around by a witless mob is startling and hard for me to describe. I think this may be the apex of the Pythons' wordplay, and the fact that it's foreshadowed in an early scene where Brian and others are listening to the real Messiah but misinterpreting his words wildly only adds an icing to the cake. If there's a message to LIFE OF BRIAN it's that people will hear what they want to hear, and sometimes no matter how clear you think you're being, you're not going to get through to them - especially if God's in the way.

I find comedy harder to describe or critique than just about anything else; perhaps that's a copout but I'm not sure how I can really get at just how clever and funny the film is without quoting a bunch of dialogue, and what's the point in that? You're here on IMDb, you can check it out easily yourselves. I will close by saying that in one way LIFE OF BRIAN does seem to "conform" to the more modern style of religious "epic" - the Jerusalem and the Jews here are dirty, disheveled, and poor. Gone pretty much for good by this time is the splendor of the 50s and 60s Cinemascope epics - although I suspect that may have as much do with the small budgets of the Pythons' film, and Scorsese's and Gibson's later, serious efforts at the Christ story, as with any conscious desire to make things grubby.

Note on the disc - the transfer is excellent, and you can't beat this (or most editions of Python films, really) for extras; I've only scratched the surface of the two commentaries, the documentary, etc, and haven't even touched the cast reading.

5/5 It's the little things that make this movie, but what are they?
  by Nancy H. Rathke (Madison, WI United States)
We fans can rave endlessly about the geniuses behind "Life of Brian", but (like most good humor) it is pointless to try to define where that genius lies. Think of the scene with Pontius Pilate: it was probably funny on paper and even in rehearsal, but it will live as a great comic scene because of Michael Palin's superb delivery. Not just his lisp, but his facial expressions as he tries new phrases and watches for the audience reaction. Is this expert direction? Is it intuitively Palin's doing, because of his experience in sketch humor? Did it evolve, like Topsy, from the critical mass of comedy talent involved?

Another thing that puzzles me as I watched the documentary about the shows, the people, and the movies: I can remember seeing the shows for the first time and feeling threatened by the humor. Were they attacking me? And values I held? I couldn't relax and go along with the joke until about the third time through, when my kids were roaring at the zaniness. So: did I change or did my sense of humor adapt to something I knew was acceptedly funny despite being profane and bawdy and just plain silly?

And who cares, really?

5/5 One of the funniest movies ever
  by Bill Pennock (West Sacramento, CA USA)
You have to not take it too seriously, especially if you are an easily offended christian. It is about a regular guy who get's mistaken for the Messiah. There are so many great parodies of some of the dumb things that people do, like breaking into the sect of the gourd or the shoe and fighting about it. Love this movie. Always remember, "Look on the bright side of life..."


2/5 meh, this seems like its more hype than anything.
  by J. Chan (California)
I would have to say I love Monty Python, but this has be the least funny of the 3 movies. Wheres the wit? Wheres the exaggeration? wheres the low blows? the movie feels like a bad episode of Family Guy where the tired out the jokes are repeated. The characters were not believable either. what happen to the social commentary? while it does poke at religion, the jokes seem more stereotypical than smart (wheres the history lesson?). Was the joke about the nose poking at the Jews or was it just a bit they stuck in? It seems like they got all the right elements for a super funny movie, but they decided not to refine it. Maybe the movie was just still too PC and not offensive enough to be funny.

5/5 Hey!
  by Lydia Gaytan
C'mon! It's Python!

Added bonus: this is the one that REALLY irked the zealots.