The Pythons' defense against the charge of blasphemy in this film relies upon a juvenile technicality, akin to insisting a lie doesn't count if you keep your fingers crossed while telling it. No, technically, this film's not about Jesus Christ but some poor dope named Brian who keeps being mistaken for the Messiah. Of course, juvenile is the operative word with the Pythons. As a juvenile, my reaction to Monty Python and the Holy Grail was falling off the theater seat laughing until I hyperventilated. Perhaps if I'd seen Brian as a juvenile, it would have seemed as funny. When did get around to finally seeing Brian, I found the film neither as blasphemous as its reputation nor as funny as Grail. Some Python fans might disagree on that second assessment, but then again the "message" of Brian, the Pythons say, is a call to think for onseself.

The Gospel according to Monty Python goes thusly: Brian of Nazareth falls by accident (and most literally) into the role of prophet, and the people follow him despite his best efforts to shoo them away. Everything he does is interpreted as wisdom or a miracle by the slavish, worshipping crowds. No doubt the religious-epic genre was crying out to be satirized, and sharply; and this film is sharpest with the occasional dead-on parody of 50s-style Biblical drama. The satire is helped by the use of leftover sets and costumes from Zefirelli's Jesus of Nazareth, and a soundtrack complete with those angelic "oohohhoohs" that always seemed designed to provoke a Pavlovian response in viewers, a great argument in favor of a mock-religious film about thinking for oneself.

Meanwhile, Jesus of Nazareth shows up in a brief cameo, in a famous bit where the back of the crowd mishears the distant preacher as saying "Blessed are the cheese makers" (though a liberal-interpreter hastens to note that the reference is not to be taken literally, but applies to any manufacturer of dairy products). Most of the jokes are aimed less at the Christ story than peripheral targets. There's plenty of naughty word-play with Latin, a spoof on political radicals, climaxing in the classic kvetch "What have the Romans ever done for us?" (aside, of course, from the aqueduct, sanitation, roads, irrigation, medicine, education, wine, public baths, etc). The Pythons specialtized in teasing out the absurdity of cultural conventions, in Grail, for example, the burning of witches, here the exclusive male right to stone blasphemers, a right based on no better reason (it seems to them) than the charge "It is written." There are some revolutionary absurdities in the Christ story — turning the other cheek, that whole bit about dying for someone else's sins, etc — but, significantly, the Pythons keep their distance from the real Jesus, a sign of either respect or timidity, and uncharacteristic in any case.

Fans of this film insist that Jesus himself would have appreciated its humor: maybe in parts. The final scene, though, of victims of crucifixion ala Spartacus singing "Look on the bright side of life," showcases the truly nihilist side of the Pythons and, as nihilism always does, calls into question any higher aim of their idol-smashing other than sheer delight in breaking things. Pointing out human absurdities always loses something if absolutely everything is absurd.