Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)

Rating: 10/10 (25 January 2020)

Directed by Terry Jones. Starring Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Sue Jones-Davies, Terry Gilliam, John Young, Terence Bayler, Carol Cleveland. (R)
All-time great comedy from British troupe Monty Python, delivering an uproarious religious satire about Brian Cohen (Chapman), a sad-eyed, oft-bewildered man with a nervously rebellious spirit against Roman rule in Judea who eventually gets mistaken for the Messiah. His experiences loosely parallel those of Christ (seen briefly in direct and reverent fashion, played by Kenneth Colley), but the film is anything but blasphemous since its silly attacks don't aim at faith and divinity but rather hypocrisy, stubbornness, misunderstanding, groupthink, and overly pious biblical epics in general. What it is, however, is funny--very, very funny, in ways that only Python was ever able to truly master, specifically how they dress up clever and barbed commentary in the guise of sheer, tacky lunacy, and making the humor consistently work on both levels. Those who are offended by the jokes are the ones that go in wanting to be offended; all others need worry about just one thing: laughing so hard that it hurts.
97/100