terrible... so disappointed.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Everybody is skewered in this potentially really good film, which falters as noted, no one comes out looking great, Christian, non- Christian, charity cases, welfare cheats, oblivious do-gooders, selfish non-do-gooders alike, with great insight offered on all of the above throughout. The primary comment seems to be that modern times has gotten Christianity right, that its message is obsolete, that the govt has filled in for dwindling public charity because society has moved from giving to being provided for---to the extent that the tattered welfare state is continuing. The oft-castigated ending was aqdded to continue in this vein the idea that Christianity, which doesn't work on Earth any more, may work better in its only alternative left, outer space, by sending broadcasts down from the heavens. At least that's the message the Boultings seemed to have wanted us to get, tho few on this site have. Like those few films that try to deliver important stories but don't quite work, the effort was worth it. Sellers plays his character perfectly, the entire cast is very good, the script is excellent for what it's trying to accomplish, and the ending, which does seem tacked on and out of place, is actually the logical extension to the quandary of Christianity in modern times that's displayed through the film.

I liked Peter Sellers in his well-known films and I started to watch the harder-to-find movies in his repertoire. I am starting to hate every movie he was in. His satire falls flat throughout his movies and he makes irrelevant points about society. Many people blame the script but he chose to do the movie with this inept script. Humor is lacking throughout this movie and his many other films.First of all, the "satire" in this movie is directed at the stereotypical stuffed-shirts but this movie then builds up the stereotypical low-lifes as heroes. It is a cliché through and through and it is poorly done. The movie was plodding along and bored me to no end.I don't understand why so many people think that any satire of Peter Sellers is funny. There is nothing interesting in this movie and every joke falls flat because of bad timing, bad acting or whatever reason.For example, a man, who is on the dole and refuses to work, loses his home but the vicar allows them to live in the vicarage, where his large family spreads junk around it and continues to steal and cause trouble just like before they lost their other home. This family doesn't need to learn anything but the stuffed-shirts can't do anything right. This type of humor is one-sided at its best and superficial at its worst.

Owing to a clerical error, John Smallwood, a prison padre and good-natured believer in goodwill to all men, is appointed vicar of the conservative village of Orbiston Parva. Soon his wild ideas about being nice to people and offering charity to the poor begin to cause both commercial and political ructions ...This is a lovely gentle satire on both the lapsed, self-serving attitude of middle England towards Christianity and the tenuous position of the torporific Church in the face of consumer culture. Sellers is excellent as Smallwood, whose simple faith in the merits of Christ's teachings - self-sacrifice, forgiveness, penitence - are at odds with a community which is too busy to go to Sunday Service, likes to evict layabouts and wants to build factories to attract business. Boulting and Frank Harvey's script is excellent, making its points subtly and effectively through character, but also with some witty gags (a train guard addresses a compartment full of clerics, saying, "Last supper, gentlemen."). The large cast all acquit themselves well, especially Sykes and Handl as a pair of spongers with an indeterminate number of children, Peters as a dustman-turned-church-warden, Miles as a quietly ruthless butler, and a very young Kinnear as an ex-convict. This is the film for those people who consider themselves religious and think the Church is a wonderful institution, but don't actually feel they need to go.

While Peter Sellers does a good job with his role as a naive minister -- and most of the supporting roles are also well-played -- the film as a whole is not especially interesting. It has a few funny moments, but is mostly yawn-inducing. Most of the characters, from low-life rogues to the stuffy gentry, are cliches that I've seen a dozen times before. What saves this film from being a total failure is a talented cast -- too bad they didn't have a better script to work with.