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Brazil

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Brazil (1985)

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Reviews Counted: 41

Fresh: 40

Rotten:1

Average Rating: 8.5/10

Consensus: Brazil, Terry Gilliam's visionary Orwellian fantasy, is an audacious dark comedy, filled with strange, imaginative visuals.

Runtime: 2 hrs 23 mins

Genre: Comedies

Synopsis: BRAZIL is Terry Gilliam's masterpiece. Cowritten by Gilliam, playwright Tom Stoppard, and Charles McKeown, the cult-favorite film is set in a futuristic society laden with red tape and bureaucracy.... BRAZIL is Terry Gilliam's masterpiece. Cowritten by Gilliam, playwright Tom Stoppard, and Charles McKeown, the cult-favorite film is set in a futuristic society laden with red tape and bureaucracy. When a bug (literally) gets in the system, an innocent man is killed, leading mild-mannered Sam Lowry (an excellent Jonathan Pryce) to reexamine what he wants out of life. He decides to fight the totalitarian system in his search for freedom--and the woman he loves. The terrific, offbeat cast features Robert De Niro as a renegade heating engineer; Katherine Helmond as Sam's ever-younger mother; Michael Palin as a government-sanctioned torturer with a distaste for upsetting the status quo; Bob Hoskins as a vengeful Central Services employee; Jim Broadbent as a wacko plastic surgeon; the wonderful Ian Holm as Sam's nerve-ridden, pitiful boss, afraid of his own signature; and Kim Greist as the rebel Sam falls for. The look of BRAZIL is relentless, overwhelming, and outrageously spectacular. Giant monoliths rise from the street; government offices are a network of computers, pneumatic tubes, and narrow hallways built with Nazi-like precision; and apartment complexes are a maze of washed-out grays and numbers, all frighteningly uniform. The terrorist explosions actually bring color into this dull, monochramatic world. BRAZIL is a nightmare vision of the future, yet also hysterically funny and incisive, one of the most inventive, influential, and important films of the 1980s. [More]

Starring: Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Michael Palin, Kim Greist

Starring: Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Michael Palin, Kim Greist, Ian Holm, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, Peter Vaughan, Jim Broadbent, Ian Richardson, Barbara Hicks, Charles McKeown

Director: Terry Gilliam

Director: Terry Gilliam
Screenwriter: Terry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard, Charles McKeown
Producer: Arnon Milchan
Composer: Michael Kamen

[See More Credits]

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Release:

Sep 5, 2006

No Details Exist
 
 

Reviews for Brazil

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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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Influenced by Kafka, Orwell, and Kubrick, Gilliam's darkly humorous futuristic satire is narratively flawed and excessive in many ways, but it displays its creator's wildly vivid imagination and is intermittently witty.

Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | comment Comment
04/10/09
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: ReelViews | comment Comment
10/16/08
James Berardinelli
ReelViews
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Brazil serves up one of the most breathtakingly imaginative worlds ever to be put on screen.

Full Review Source: KPBS.org | comment Comment
04/18/08
Beth Accomando
KPBS.org

Brazil -- a black comedy that remains ahead of its time -- is one of the most audacious fantasies ever made.

Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment Comment
05/30/07
TV Guide's Movie Guide
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Brazil offers a chillingly hilarious vision of the near-future.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
05/30/07
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Terry Gilliam's ferociously creative black comedy is filled with wild tonal contrasts, swarming details, and unfettered visual invention -- every shot carries a charge of surprise and delight.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
05/30/07
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The bleak Brazil reaches for greatness but just falls short.

Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
03/27/07
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

No review available.

comment Comment
10/22/06
Cole Smithey
ColeSmithey.com

Gilliam's Orwellian vision is memorable and distinctive

Full Review Source: Cinemania | comment Comment
06/21/06
Dan Jardine
Cinemania

Fortunately the story of an alternative future is realised with such visual imagination and sparky humour that it's only half way through that the plot's weaknesses become apparent.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
02/09/06
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Brilliant all around; Gilliam at his peak

comment Comment
10/28/05
Pete Vonder Haar
Film Threat

No review available.

comment Comment
09/20/05
Linda Cook
Quad City Times (Davenport, IA)

No review available.

comment Comment
06/19/05
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

No review available.

comment Comment
11/19/04
Robin Clifford
Reeling Reviews

Celebrates imagination as the only escape from a bleak, ridiculous, and troubled world.

Full Review Source: Spirituality and Practice | comment Comment
08/26/04
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spirituality and Practice

A masterly film (and still one of the ten best films of the 1980s.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
05/17/04
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

No review available.

comment Comment
02/10/04
Spence D.
IGN Movies

No review available.

comment Comment
01/23/04
Carol Cling
Las Vegas Review-Journal

It has visual style and imagination to burn, but it's the ideas behind it that make it a modern classic..

comment Comment
11/13/03
Rob Thomas
Capital Times (Madison, WI)

An intelligent, thought provoking, visually stunning film.

Full Review Source: Three Movie Buffs | comment Comment
09/27/03
Scott Nash
Three Movie Buffs
 
 
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Latest News for Brazil

October 23, 2006: RTIndie: David Lynch, Terry Gilliam Living on the Edge of Hollywood
It's a tough time to be a veteran in the indie game. Why are celebrated auteurs David Lynch and Terry Gilliam having a hard time getting their films into theaters? More...

July 17, 2006: A New Director in the Bond Franchise?
We haven't been able to check out "Casino Royale" yet, but apparently the Bond-makers already have their eyeballs focused on the NEXT spy adveture. Early word is that... More...

August 25, 2005: Critical Consensus: Grim for "Brothers," Dark for "Cave"
At the movies this week, there's an undercurrent of collectivism in the face of adversity. "The Brothers Grimm" features two con men in the 1700s who get in over their... More...

June 15, 2005: Trailer Bulletin:The Brothers Grimm
AOL Moviefone.com unleashes the first trailer for Terry Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm," which opens on August 26th. Matt Damon ("The Bourne Identity") and... More...

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