While not as funny as the Monty Python teams equally memorable Holy Grail outing this is still one of the funniest comedies ever made and a lesson to all in the fine art of making the incredibly strange and improbable humourous. The plot itself concerns a man, the eponymous Brian (Chapman), born at exactly the same time and in the same place as Jesus and the trials he goes through coping with his cloying mother, misdirected fellow revolutionaries and the hordes of people following him in the belief that he is their messiah.
Frankly, I remember Life of Brian more for it's brilliant characters and the odd scene here and there than for the plot in the same way that I remember Holy Grail. Cleese's suspicious Roman Centurion, Palin's sympathetic jailer and Idle's Mr Cheeky are all highly memorable and the epitome of excellent characterization but the whole thing to me just fails to gel in the way it could have. Some of the humour becomes strained towards the end too, when the Monty Python team themselves are reduced to being members of a crowd only and the plot has to make up for the first hours lack thereof.
While I for one am certainly not belittling what is a wonderful and highly amusing film (that is if you understand Pythonesque humour, some don't) I only wanted to point out a few flaws in it that explain it's 'mere' 4 star rating. On the plus side it is possesed of many amazingly funny scenes, the stoning one stands out most to me, and a subtle yet intelligent critique of religion and peoples need to worship something or someone they believe to be greater than themselves ("I say you are (The messiah) my lord, and I should know. I've followed a few"- Cleese). Watch out too for a cameo from the magnificent Spike Milligan as the only follower who correctly interprets Brian's wishes. His turn and walk away alone is the work of an undeniable master of comedy. |
