Film
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- Director
- Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones
- Certificate
- 15
- Running Time
- 91 mins
Unfairly overshadowed by the subsequent, more controversial Life of Brian, the Pythons’ first proper movie (And Now For Something Completely Different was just a bunch of sketches slung together for the cinema) still stands up well all these years on. A suitably grimy parody of the traditional mediaeval adventure, with plenty of swipes at those seemingly inexhaustible reserves of human gullibility and stupidity (the witch-hunting scene being a brilliant summation of zealotry and perverse logic), the film suffers from an episodic construction, but at least these episodes are consistently funny. Who could forget John Cleese’s astonishingly rude Frenchman taunting the grail-seekers from his lofty turret; the anything-but-brave Sir Robin (Eric Idle), whose minstrels sing joyously of his shortcomings; the Knights who say ‘Ni!’ and their shrubbery; and Cleese’s ludicrously bellicose Black Knight, who continues to taunt Lancelot long after he’s been deprived of every limb?
Forget, if you can, that generations of nerds know the script off by heart: it’s always a disappointment when when the rozzers finally intervene to put an end to the inspired silliness.
Our newsletters emailed directly to you
