It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

A member of the House of Lords dies, leaving his estate to his son. Unfortunately, his son thinks he is Jesus Christ. The other, somewhat more respectable, members of their family plot to steal the estate from him. Murder and mayhem ensue.As of now (April 2017), I have written half-baked reviews for almost 6,000 movies and I have reached that cynical point where I feel like I've seen it all. And then this film comes across my desk. Holy smokes, it is as funny and fresh as any film before or since. This is what satire or black comedy is meant to be.Peter O'Toole was nominated for an Oscar. Sadly, he lost. But even more sadly is how this film was not nominated for other Oscars. I am not going to look up the competition at the moment, but this surely must have been one of the best films of 1972.

Peter O'Toole becomes the 14th Earl of Gurney, head of one of the richest and most powerful families in England. He assumes the title upon the death of Harry Andrews. When Andrews is buried, the Reverend Alistair Sims comes to the family seeking reassurance that Andrews' having been found dead, hanging by a noose in his own bedroom, doesn't indicate suicide. After all -- burial in sacred ground and all that. Sims is told indignantly, good heavens, the man was wearing a cocked hat, underpants, and a ballet dress -- does that sound like suicide? The rest of the family carry on an intense discussion but every once in a while they're interrupted by a shriek from Sims, to whom realizations come only slowly, and one at a time. "Cocked HAT?" And, later, "Underpants?" And finally, "BALLET DRESS?" It doesn't help that the slightly nutty Andrews, who was in the habit of strangling himself while reciting patriotic speeches, is dead. O'Toole, as his successor, is downright loco.O'Toole believes he is Jesus Christ. He certainly LOOKS the part. He is given long flowing hair with bangs, and a short beard, and with his blue eyes looks exactly like a painting on a post card sold in one of those tourist shops around the Vatican.But if his appearance is bizarre, his beliefs are even worse. He thinks God is love. What an insane idea. In the end another madman changes O'Toole's engrams and turns him into "Jack," his real name. Unfortunately he becomes the wrong person, Jack the You-Know-What. He gives a speech in Parliament praising capital punishment, torture, and so forth, and receives a rousing applause from the assembly. Love doesn't sell. Cruelty wins by a mile.O'Toole described this as a comedy with tragic relief, and that's about it. It presents a pretty shabby picture of human nature, beneath the laughs, or the attempts at laughter, which too often evoke puzzled frowns.Peter Barnes' play was staged in 1968 and presumably written a year or two earlier, a period when the voice of iconoclasm was heard throughout the land, as the 14th Earl of Gurney might have put it before he was electrified.The late 60s were a time of revolution, first outrageously irrational and then violent. The movie may look dated because it so accurately reflects that evolutionary path. Of course some of its zingers never lose their sting. How does O'Toole know he's God? "Because whenever I pray, I find I'm talking to myself." Skewered here are class distinctions, snobbery, religion, love, and anything else you can think of, down to the roots of our cultural being. The problem is that it doesn't seem all that funny to me, not in 2010. There are so many shouts, so much gesticulating, dances that come out of nowhere, an immaterial sequence involving "La Traviata," the cast breaking into old songs like "My Blue Heaven," overacting generally, winks at an audience that already recognizes the joke.Since it's a whimsical, comic, tragic fantasy it needn't stick too close to reality -- actually, it mustn't -- and it doesn't. There's nothing at all amusing about paranoid schizophrenia, which is about the most terrifying form of the disorder. And if you bring together two patients who both believe they are Jesus Christ, you don't get the electrifying confrontation the movie gives us. The psychologist Milton Rokeach already brought THREE patients with the same delusion together and their eyes remained glazed. They were as emotionally flat as always when they were introduced. One commented, "Oh, so you're a cemetery rerise?" All the performances are fine. O'Toole's role is a difficult one but he handles it very well. Who can count the times he's played a madman? It's the would-be disturbing script and the in-your-face direction that keeps this from being the black comedy it wants to be. Sometimes subtlety plays better, as in "Dr. Strangelove," a product of the same period with a similar structure.

People who've only seen Peter O'Toole in his dramatic roles may find it hard to believe he's just as talented in comic roles. In The Ruling Class he plays Jack Gurney, the 14th Earl of Gurney, who returns home to take over the estate after his father dies in a ridiculous role-playing sex game. Trouble is, Jack's a paranoid schizophrenic who believes he's God, so his uncle tries to have him married to get a healthy heir or institutionalized for the sake of appearances. For as the movie shows, it's not the eccentric behavior that's troubling, for every character in this movie is clearly off his mind one way or the other; it's keeping up appearances in society that matters.As it is, The Ruling Class is a sharp, ruthless and darkly funny indictment of British high society, wasteful, irresponsible, prejudiced, living in a world apart and yet presiding over the future of all citizens.The movie is based on a play by Peter Barnes and displays the Brits' usual talent for wit, dark humor and world play. Some scenes are unforgettable gems of humor. It also has several musical episodes which disturbingly fit the mood of the movie.However I don't think they manage to sustain the humor evenly throughout the movie, and there are some dull bits and others not as funny as they should be. With the movie clocking in at 154 minutes, it's difficult to keep the jokes great for so long. Nevertheless it's a satisfying movie with a great ending. Any movie that ends with Peter O'Toole thinking he's Jack the Ripper is clearly special and well worth watching.

I have heard about this film from one of my teachers in high school and when I saw it yesterday in a video club I immediately recognized it, since I remembered that the protagonist thought of himself as Jesus. Peter O' Toole is so good in this movie that he made me think the unthinkable, that Lawrence of Arabia is not his best role ever. This movie is black comedy,musical, farce, political satire , parable all in one. It has some terrific moments as the one where the hero and the representative who came to see whether he is insane or not, sing together the Eton boat song-I remembered Churchill in Great Contemporaries who wrote of a British political personage who died singing the Eton or Harrow boat song- I can not recollect this detail. Anyhow for someone who has an idea of British class conventions derived from reading, papers and films as opposed from actual experience this movie is a rare treat.The scene where the House of Lords is presented as a house full of corpses and skeletons through the eyes of the protagonist is a haunting scene, not at all comic, although it is ironic.The scene with the two Gods in a room is also brilliant.I wonder if the Tatler for example could present such a character for an interview, when it presents representative samples of British socialites.I think that someone must be very sure of his strength in order to produce so savage satire and criticism. I wonder if we could see equally successful representations of American WASPS or French Enarques.This movie has everything and I can not classify it. I also have not seen or read the play which I am going to buy in order to form an impression although a written text is not the same as a live performance.Still a society that produces such self-criticism must be very sure of itself.