Time Bandits

Tom does a terrible job in explaining to Morgan just how great Terry Gilliam’s 1981 sci-fi fantasy romp Time Bandits is. Morgan professes his love for actor David Warner, we discover how a Beatle paid for the film, and Tom clearly didn’t study Ancient Greece. A childhood favourite film of Tom’s, Terry Gilliam’s fantasy comedy is one of the most underrated films of its generation. Reuniting Gilliam with several of his Monty Python mates, the film was part-financed by George Harrison and formed the first part of Gilliam’s ‘Trilogy of Imagination’, which was followed by Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. All the films are about the “craziness of our awkwardly ordered society and the desire to escape it through whatever means possible”, and focus on these struggles and attempts to escape them through imagination: Time Bandits through the eyes of a child, Brazil through the eyes of a man in his thirties, and Munchausen through the eyes of an elderly man. Time Bandits starred child actor Craig Warnock as Kevin, and the brilliant David Rappaport as Randall. There’s also excellent cameo appearances from Sean Connery, Michael Palin, John Cleese, Ian Holm and many others.