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.

I was too young to know about the controversy surrounding "The Life Of Brian" when it was first released, but in my adult years I discovered that not everyone felt the same way I did about the film - their loss.Casting of the actors playing Monty Python cast was just about perfect from a visual point of view. The only issue I had was with the actor portraying Terry Gilliam not being able to fake an American accent effectively.There are so many shout outs to the way the Flying Circus series was made in this film to make it almost seem like the original cast had made it in the early '80's and it had gotten lost somewhere and recently found and broadcast.The irony of Stephen Fry portraying his particular character is outstanding.I laughed out loud a lot while watching this "mockudramedy" and I would have given it a 10 star rating if not for the aforementioned bad American accent.

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.

seemed to gather an incredible amount of bad reviews on certain sites for some reason.The simple fact is its inventive funny stupid and against all that it actually has a point to make about free speech. The actors all very closely resemble their real life counter parts and play a stereotyped parody version of the pythons themselves. Eric is a money grabbing ******* ,cleese is basil faulty ,palin is super nice etc the film takes plenty of stupid asides and skews off on tangents for the sake of comedy. it is not a documentary /drama on the events of the time as some fans where expecting.Its a strange comedy hybrid where reality frequently takes a holiday and actors directly address the viewers .As a fan of the pythons and free speech i loved this so go watch