Brazil (1985)

I like good satire and parody, but the Monty Python style of humor wears me out and just doesn't work for this viewer. The only one I ever came close to liking was 'The Holy Grail'. Watching this picture I tended to zone out from time to time, it played like a stream of random nonsense instead of a coherent story and I just got tired of it very quickly. Still, I hung in there because that's what I do as a prerequisite to commenting on it here on IMDb. I will admit to being amused by Robert De Niro's turn as 'heating engineer' Harry Tuttle, only because I've never seem him do anything so absurd before. And the supervisor attempting to catch all his worker bee employees slacking off was cleverly done, but those moments of genuine humor seemed few and far between. The rest of it was either way over the top or intellectually boring, something one might experience in a nightmarish fever dream. I don't do well with those either.

Brazil is one of the strangest movies I have ever seen, yet it is not out of character for Terry Gilliam. Jonathan Pryce stars as a mid level bureaucrat in a dystopian world that is a cross between 1984 and the DMV. In this fiscally-conscious big brother government that charges prisoners for their interrogations, there is a form for everything and the bureaucracy dominates all aspects of life. The plot is meandering and plays second fiddle to the absurdist aspects of the movie.There are no likable characters, so there is no reason for the viewer to care what happens to anyone. There are a few interesting characters, namely Robert De Niro and Bob Hoskins as the two opposite sides of the central air repair business. Ultimately, not much actually happens, and a fair bit of what happens is simply absurd side plots that go nowhere and add nothing to the story.

this is one of the funniest movies i have ever seen. the social commentary in this movie is brilliant and absolutely hilarious.every second of this movie is great. another thing is the world building, it looks incredible. this movie feels like a mix of blade runner and fear and loathing in Las Vegas

One of my favorite novels of all time is George Orwell's 1984, and Brazil is very much a comedic interpretation of that. Brazil shows us a hilarious exaggeration of the monotony of machine like run bureaucracy, and man's constant voyage to avoid responsibility. "That's not my department." Everyone seems to say. Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a low ranking government employee. When an error leads to the execution of engineer Archibald Buttle (Brian Miller) instead of terrorist Archibald Tuttle (Robert De Niro), Sam attempts to fix this, and inadvertently becomes an enemy of the state. Read that scenario again. This is a funny movie. It's a dark comedy/political satire, and almost every joke works. The nonchalant attitude of the government depicted in the film is where a big chunk of the humor comes from. It's a very smart comedy. Honestly if you like political satire, then Brazil is one we can all enjoy together.