"And now for something completely indifferent"

Rating: 5/10 (28 July 2007)

The daring of it!How cutting edge!Those remarkable Python boys do it again with something to offend everybody!.............Give me a break will ya? Christianity is a soft target.And this movie does lampoon Christianity despite the clever - clever Oxbridge sophistry employed by Cleese and Co. to the contrary.I don't have a problem with that per se,my problem is that the makers lacked the courage to admit it.Surely a group as daring and innovative as the Pythons should have the balls to say "yes,this is a movie that takes the pxss out of Christianity - and we don't care". I went to see "The Life of Brian" in the West End with a group of middle - aged schoolteachers and social workers all of whom were determined to demonstrate how unoffended they were by guffawing heartily at the drop of a hat.There was no one under 30 in the audience,perhaps an indication that the Pythons' appeal was to a demographic that found their humour familiar from years of being subjected to it from the original sources i.e. The Goon Show,Round the Horne,Marty Feldman and of course the great Spike Milligan who surely must have felt just a little rueful at accepting a small part in the movie that would never have existed had he not more or less single - handedly invented surreal radio thirty years earlier. Yes it is a funny movie,and I did laugh a lot,but daring and original it most certainly isn't."Carry on Cleo" was funnier without the pretension and the faux daring. It is probably becoming clear that I am not a particular admirer of Pythonesque (the very word sends a shudder up my spine) humour. To me the whole group seem like smug,sniggering,cocky overgrown schoolboys who have been told how clever they are for so long that they have - for years -believed in their own publicity.Occasionally,one - like Michael Palin - will make a genuine effort to do something completely different(to coin a phrase) but even he cannot resist referring to his time with The Organisation on a regular basis. Terry Gilliam,perhaps the most talented of them all,broke free to make "The Twelve Monkeys",one of the most dazzling of all 1990s movies,a creation of real daring and panache. If the boys really want to be brave and outrageous perhaps they should consider making "The Life of Mohamed" but I really don't think they will,do you?