Life of Brian packs in a lot of jokes: broad and highbrow, slapstick and satirical. Most work and quite a few knock it right out of the comedy ballpark. At its finest moments the jokes are both hilarious and intellectual, a deconstruction of religious pitfalls. Monty Python and the Holy Grail is among the most quotable comedies ever made, and a lot of that film’s pleasure is in the memorization of the routines. This is also quotable, but more of the humor rely on the particular characters and timing than the lines themselves. “Arms for an ex-leper” isn’t the punchline but the jumping off point for a hilarious case made against Jesus’ miracles. There’s the great “this requires immediate discussion” (a line I use often), but you can’t pull one line out from the beard haggling bit or lisping Pontius Pilate. It’s the whole routine that works.
The film has a lot of side trips and detours away from the main plot. None stranger than the moment when Brian falls in with some space aliens for a brief sci-fi battle. However, there’s enough of a plot to elevate this from a sketch film to a full on satire, and it’s target is more of discussion topic than in Airplane!. Some of the jokes go on too long, but when the Pythons are on a roll, the laughs go on just as long. The greatest section is when Brian is first mistaken as a messiah. The locals who join as followers immediately break into two groups when they can’t decide if the basis for Brian’s teachings are his gourd or his dropped shoe. That’s followed by a series of incidents where every little thing Brian does is taken as a grand miracle or divine direction. Ultimately Brian realizes he can’t escape his fate when a follower claims “only the messiah would deny himself.” It’s an explanation, deconstruction, parody and scathing criticism all in one.
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