A Major Disappointment

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

As a lifelong Monty Python fan, I was delighted when the ABC (Australia) finally aired this film. I should have known what I was letting myself in for when, in the first five minutes, Jesus Christ turns around, bends over and expels a long, loud, robe-billowing fart in someone's face.I'm surprised that, reading the reviews on this site alone, so many self-confessed Python fans love this film. Granted, it attempts to emulate the Python spirit by often segueing to absurdist/fantasy/dream sequences, and the ensemble company feel of the cast each adopting several roles. In the end, however, it merely comes across as a bunch of modern-day comedians who grew up on a steady diet of Python, tried desperately to emulate them, and fail miserably. The whole piece is painfully unfunny (though I confess I did laugh twice).The acting, while competent, was disappointing; the Pythons are caricatured as opposed to portrayed. Graham Chapman's is the most offensive, being depicted as a lisping, mincing, pipe-smoking queen who mentions his homosexuality at every given opportunity. Terry Gilliam is shown as a wild-eyed, eccentric Yank. Terry Jones comes across as a public-school-educated Elmer Fudd. Eric Idle it seems is a money-grubbing miser, though I thought Steve Punt gave an excellent turn here. Stephen Fry is dryly funny as God, but that could be because Fry thinks he IS God.The humour descends to rank callousness as the script rips mercilessly on people with speech impediments, Tourettes Syndrome and other social disabilities. Something the original Pythons would have deemed beneath them. The film only briefly picks up in the last act with a fairly accurate portrayal of the televised debate. If they'd just stayed along this course, with the odd splash of humour thrown in to lighten the subject, this could have been such a good presentation of one of the more interesting chapters in film history.John Cleese has disowned this film, and I can see why. Avoid at all costs, unless your Python obsession plummets into the depths of sado-masochism.

What if you wanted to recreate a small slice of cinematic history by depicting the real-life members of a troupe of performers — for example, Monty Python's John Cleese — as the most famous of their fictional selves (in his case, Basil Fawlty)? Or wanted to depict another member of that same troupe — say, Michael Palin — as the all-round nice guy, decent chap and jolly good bloke that the public has in decades since gotten to know through his travel programmes and chat show appearances? Or wanted to depict secondary real-life characters — say Michael Palin's wife — who are largely unknown to the general public, as common comic characters from Monty Python's Flying Circus (in her case, as Terry Jones's working class housewife)? Or if you wanted to make commentary on modern-day Britain by getting the characters in 1979 to (funnily enough) spectacularly accurately speculate about what a modern-day Britain some 32 years hence might look like? And then throw in for good measure what God Himself might have to say about "Life of Brian"?Well, what you'd get is the wonderfully funny and delightful "Holy Flying Circus" — a film in the style of a Monty Python film about a particular chapter in the history of the Monty Python comedy group. Most of the actors are immediately recognisable as their Monty Python member and Darren Boyd should have won something for his portrayal/impression of John Cleese as Basil Fawlty. It was quite a phenomenal performance.After I watched it, the whole show made me wonder if in fact 1979 wasn't the very height of civilisation and that since then we've been drawn back into the mud of barbarism. I'm still thinking about that...

This pythonesque drama about the subsequent controversy of the Monty Python film, Life Of Brian breaks out of the usual docudrama route and instead goes for the surreal, re-imagined route and even downright silly. The opening scene features Stephen Fry as God. Only the Spanish Inquisition is missing.The cinema release of Life of Brian aroused a lot of controversy and the film depicts the threats the actors received and the subsequent showdown that had on a television debate with the Bishop of Southwark and Malcolm Muggeridge.Of course tensions surrounding the event are heightened and parodied. The Python team are exaggerated persona's of themselves, with Palin being too nice, Idle the money grabber, Cleese being Basil Fawlty even doing the funny walk at one point, Terry Jones appears in drag as Palin's wife.It does show the effect the controversy had on the actors especially Palin who is shown as the reasonable everyman, frightened with the protesters outside his door. It very much captures the absurd spirit of Python and the actors playing Palin and Cleese come out of it best.

As a long time Python fan I was curious to see this piece, upon discovering the Blu-Ray at a store. It's a curious undertaking that teeters on a see-saw, between comedy and drama. Unfortunately, it's this inability to commit to one or the other that undermines both. There are spotty humorous moments and equally spotty excellent dramatic moments; but, the whole is less than the sum of its parts.The casting is quite good visually and even somewhat verbally, for the central pair of Palin and Cleese. Unfortunately, the performances are too often mired in caricature, rather than actually portraying the Pythons. The peripheral Pythons (Gilliam, Chaplin, and Idol; mostly) are all but ignored, with Gilliam portrayed as a gibbering idiot (more or less) and Idol as a money-grubbing b#$t%^&. Chapman is barely portrayed at all and Terry Jones mostly serves as a joke, as Palin's wife. Palin comes closest to being real, with Cleese coming off more as Basil Fawlty than John Cleese. Unfortunately, this lack of depth undermines any serious drama and is rarely very funny, apart from the odd jokes and a few surreal moments. Actually, many of the supporting players have a better handle on balancing between comedy and drama, especially Michael Cochran.It really isn't until the end, as the televised debate has wrapped up that the drama finally rises to a level that grasps at greatness. When Palin chastises Cleese in the hallway, we finally see more of Cleese the person, not Cleese the persona from television. The film does make the point that the Pythons came out on top because they were seen as serious artists making a point about their work, in the face of uninformed and dogmatic attacks from pompous mouthpieces of the conservative establishment. This is where the film is most effective and demonstrates that the production should have just taken this path, in the first place. The comedy is an attempt at doing Python, but rarely equals it, though the puppet battle between Cleese and Palin is worthy of Gilliam.In the end, much like the debate about Life of Brian, you really have to see the finished product and decide for yourself. I found myself laughing much less than I had hoped and aching for them to go more deeply with the drama. Others have described it as hysterically funny or complete rubbish. I suppose some of that may be influenced by familiarity with the original television debate, news reports of the period, and interviews with the Pythons. The film exaggerates much of it and underplays much of it, leaving you to sort it out for yourself, which isn't all bad. I give it points for trying and for daring to be the first to try to examine Python in a dramatic form. In that alone, it is worth viewing.