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Brazil - Criterion Collection | 
 enlarge | Director: Terry Gilliam
Actors: Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins
Studio: Criterion
Category: DVD
List Price: $59.95
Buy New: $15.48
You Save: $44.47 (74%)
New (7) Used (15) Collectible (4) from $15.48
Avg. Customer Rating:  405 reviews
Sales Rank: 16185
Format: Box Set, Closed-captioned, Color, Director's Cut, Dolby, Dvd-video, Letterboxed, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 3
Running Time: 142
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
DVD Layers: 1
DVD Sides: 1
Picture Format: Letterbox
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 5.6 x 1.9
ISBN: 0780022181
UPC: 037429138526
EAN: 9780780022188
ASIN: 0780022181
Theatrical Release Date: December 18, 1985
Release Date: July 13, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com essential video
If Franz Kafka had been an animator and film director--oh, and a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus--this is the sort of outrageously dystopian satire one could easily imagine him making. However, Brazil was made by Terry Gilliam, who is all of the above except, of course, Franz Kafka. Be that as it may, Gilliam sure captures the paranoid-subversive spirit of Kafka's The Trial (along with his own Python animation) in this bureaucratic nightmare-comedy about a meek governmental clerk named Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) whose life is destroyed by a simple bug. Not a software bug, a real bug (no doubt related to Kafka's famous Metamorphosis insect) that gets smooshed in a printer and causes a typographical error unjustly identifying an innocent citizen, one Mr. Buttle, as suspected terrorist Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro). When Sam becomes enmeshed in unraveling this bureaucratic glitch, he himself winds up labeled as a miscreant. The movie presents such an unrelentingly imaginative and savage vision of 20th-century bureaucracy that it almost became a victim of small-minded studio management itself--until Gilliam surreptitiously screened his cut for the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, who named it the best movie of 1985 and virtually embarrassed Universal into releasing it. This DVD version of Brazil is the special director's cut that first appeared in Criterion's comprehensive (and expensive) six-disc laser package in 1996. --Jim Emerson
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| Customer Reviews: Read 400 more reviews...
 Criterion Gives Some Well-Deserved Treatment To A Great Film January 7, 2009
Brazil is by far in my opinion director Terry Gilliam's best film to date. To receive this kind of treatment by Criterion is great for anyone who loves this film. The addition of the "Love Conquers All" version of the film is great touch and really puts Gilliam's battle with the studios into perspective. This set is a bit pricey for the casual movie fan, Criterion offers a way cheaper one disc version of the film for those, but if you love cinema and love to collect then get this set.
lordy lordy January 7, 2009
well heres a film that ill never get tired of seeing. when i was fourteen i liked it but didnt really get it. at 18 i found it amusing and nutty. at 21 its resonates to the core of my soul. really good movie to see every few years.
 3 stars out 4 December 21, 2008
The Bottom Line:
Brazil is a flawed masterpiece of a film; though it has many problems, most specifically Kim Griest's uneven performance as the inconsistently-written Jill, Brazil is an audacious movie that few will regret watching.
DeNiro in an Art Film! December 16, 2008
Where else could you see Robert De-Niro as a revolutionary/heating repair technician in a Monty-Python member's masterwork. The theme is 1984 meets The Wall meets Doctor Who meets the muppets, and it is well worth the watch.
 Interesting, but little more December 5, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I typically like the more abstract and intellectually masturbatory films of this nature and I'm rather fond of dark satire so this should be a huge winner for me. I'm afraid it wasn't.
Certainly there were some very cool elements technologically, I rather enjoyed the somewhat steampunk design of what the world might look like now if everything had gone a different direction.
That's really where my enjoyment ended, I think the narrative was too scattered and I never felt emotionally invested in the characters. As a story had interesting concepts but I think they were all done better and more appropriately a work like 1984 and the characters actions and emotions were so absurd that I wasn't sure I ever believed they were real.
Our poor star of the movie becomes obsessed with a women in his very strange dream but who he never appears to have any real relationship and he sacrifices seemingly everything to find her and protect her from a threat that seemed mostly within his mind. The women, initially rejecting him in question of his sanity suddenly has a change of heart and falls for him, or seems to as we fall further into the illusions and insanity of our hero's mind.
In the end I feel like this film is worth watching in the interest of film history and the art design is very nice but the movie is too absurd when it isn't plain boring and won't sit very high on my list of great movies.
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