The Crowning Achievement of a Troupe of Comic Wizards

Many years ago now, I was a wee snip of a lad marveling at my family's very first VHS video recorder. My father had purchased it that very day and had also joined one of those new video library things and hired two movies! The Life of Brian for the adults and the animated The Lord of the Rings for my younger sister and myself. Instead of watching our movie, I was so amused by the starting credits of The Life of Brian that I decided I would go with this movie instead, despite my father's suggestion that this was a movie for "grown ups only".

I can't remember if I watched all of Life of Brian that day, but over the next decade or so, this movie became an all time favourite with good reason.

The Life of Brian is a no-holds-barred parody of Christianity, where very little is sacred. The story deals with a man (Brian) who happens to have been born on the same night as Jesus Christ - Just over the road in fact. Poor Brian is initially mistaken for the messiah before the Three Wise Men realise their error and reclaim their gifts.

Throughout the film an absurd yet believable alternate portrayal of the world leading up to the birth of Christianity unfolds before us. From the speech by Christ, with "peacemakers" misheard as "cheesemakers" by the people at the back, to the Jewish freedom fighters who can't quite admit that they really do not have much to complain about in Roman occupation, to the bureaucratic and hilarious crucifixions, Life of Brian is a joy to behold. If you are sitting there having a good laugh at the very religious, beware - You just might find yourself as the next target as very little is safe from the razor sharp wit of the Python crew.

While not as out and out hilarious as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian is a far more complete, far more consistently amusing and entertaining and a far, far more clever effort by all involved than any of Monty Python's other work.