Review: Time Bandits

Born into a family that all but neglects him (preferring to stare idly at a dopey TV show hosted by a sleazy and young-looking Jim Broadbent), young Craig Warnock stumbles upon time-travelling dwarf bandits (Kenny ‘R2D2’ Baker among them) who whisk him away on a time-travelling, loot-collecting mission, guided by a map that they ‘borrowed’ from God, here called The Supreme Being (a well-cast Sir Ralph Richardson, as a sort of elderly curmudgeonly school principal in sadly only a single scene). The map is an indicator of all the holes in time, and they use these holes to slip in and out of different periods of time to steal other people’s shit for their own gain. Also after the map is the nefarious Evil Genius (David Warner, looking suitably horrid), who would be all-powerful if not for the fact that his sidekicks are boobs. Among the historical and mythological figures the boy and his adopted family encounter are a political/royal ‘figure head’ Robin Hood (John Cleese), heroic ancient King Agamemnon (Sean Connery, as a sort of father figure to the boy), diminutive and volatile Napoleon Bonaparte (Sir Ian Holm), and an Ogre (Peter Vaughan) and his missus (Katherine Helmond from “Who’s the Boss”!). Michael Palin and Shelley Duvall play a couple of dense, rather pooncey lovebirds who we encounter from time to time (See what I did there? Eh? Eh?).

Eccentric 1981 Terry Gilliam (former Monty Python animator and director of many uneven films like “The Fisher King” and the insufferable, self-indulgent flop “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen”) fantasy/comedy doesn’t always work, but has some fine vignettes and a particularly strong, heroic (albeit brief) performance by Connery, and a thoroughly nasty (but campy) one from a well-cast Warner. Gilliam’s best non-Python directorial effort, it’s really imaginative, but also very, very English. It won’t be for everyone, but if you’re a fantasy fan with a good sense of (British) humour, you’ll probably adore this one. I’m rather fond of it myself, even if it’s no “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”.

Cleese and Holm are hilarious as a thoroughly polite (but wealth-distributing and practically baby-kissing) Robin Hood, and Napoleon, sufferer of probably the biggest case of small man’s complex in the history of the world. Holm’s speech regarding other little men in history is especially funny. I’m not sure what’s funnier, the fact that none of the time bandits can sing or dance doing their song and dance routine, or the fact that one of them randomly takes a piss on a fake background during said routine. What Gilliam has to say about all of these historical/mythological characters is really amusing: Napoleon has a complex, Robin Hood greets his ‘people’ like Queen Elizabeth II, Agamemnon is a father figure, God is an unimpressed school headmaster, Satan’s power is limited severely by the boobs he surrounds himself with, etc.

It’s also good to see the diminutive stars in action roles (albeit still playing bickering, looting opportunists), and doing all manner of things they were perhaps not afforded at any other time in their careers. However, the stunts they perform aren’t nearly as frighteningly dangerous as they look, thanks to Gilliam’s careful consideration and some intelligent photography by Peter Biziou (“Life of Brian”, “Pink Floyd- The Wall”, “Mississippi Burning”). Recurring characters played by an amusingly mincey Palin (who co-wrote the script with his fellow Python member Gilliam) and the always irritating Duvall get pretty tired after a while, though. Their first appearance is amusing, but after that you start to resent Gilliam for wasting time with them. Also, the segment featuring Vaughan and Helmond only features one memorable visual involving a giant and a comparatively tiny ship. That’s a terrific WTF moment if ever I’ve seen one.

It all looks great and it’s a definite cult classic. One can hardly call the film boring or unimaginative, and I think this is the Gilliam film that best features his unique vision to entertain more than just his die-hard fans. Yes, it’s true that as soon as the knight on horseback bursts into Warnock’s bedroom you know it’s a Terry Gilliam film (what’s with all the dark medieval imagery, Terry?), but this isn’t just Gilliam having a boner for dark knights on horseback. The Gilliam touches merely give the film a unique vision instead of overshadowing the story being told. It’s a seriously weird film, with little people as scavengers and looters for protagonists, a simple bedroom with a wall that moves when it previously hasn’t done so (leading into another period in time), and a giant hand-drawn animated head, all in the opening scenes. Terry Gilliam, folks. He doesn’t see the world the way normal folk do, bless his heart (Just look at that ballsy, and frankly hilarious ending. No other filmmaker would leave its young hero in such a situation at the end, surely and yet to Gilliam that’s a happy ending! Brilliant!). The story is really enjoyable, even if the dwarves don’t quite have distinct personalities (Kenny Baker, the most experienced of the bunch, gets very little to say or do, with the late David Rappaport getting most to say and do. Apparently he had a very uppity attitude towards the other dwarf actors, but he’s clearly the best actor among them by far. What I did like was the fact that they, as essentially protagonists, were all a bit seedy, grubby and opportunistic. It’s not every filmmaker who is brave enough to give us ‘good guys’ who are selfish thieves. Also, this is one of the few time travel films where you won’t nit-pick at the ‘science’ behind it all. It’s probably a bit silly to get nit-picky about a concept that doesn’t really exist, but even so, in this case it’s so ridiculous and comedically-inclined that it doesn’t matter. Pretty good family film, too, with its themes concerning parental neglect, a kid searching for the father figure that he clearly hasn’t got at home, and it’s just such a champion of imagination and the kinds of fantasy stories kids love. Best of all, unlike “The Princess Bride”, the film doesn’t have a snarky attitude towards the fantasy genre. The humour is indicative of the filmmaker’s style, not his ambivalence towards the story or the genre. It doesn’t get in the way of the tale being told, merely enhancing it and making it uniquely Gilliam.

Look, the film isn’t perfect, and there’s some stuff I’d cut out. However, this film is about 75-80% me in cinematic form, and probably close to 100% me as a teenager (Sadly I didn’t see the film until well into my 20s). I think it’d work even better as a book where the reader could imagine things for themselves, visually imaginative as Gilliam is as a filmmaker. The guy may not always get it right, but he sure has a helluva unique imagination. It’s a really good film, one of the standouts in the fantasy genre, and probably one of Gilliam’s most accessible films.

NB: Am I the only one who thinks it’s bizarre that Sean Connery turned down playing Gandalf in “Lord of the Rings” because he couldn’t make heads or tails of the text, yet made this film? Which is the more perplexing concept, really?

Rating: B+