Pluskylang Great Film overall

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Hugezu87 Interesting short about assurance company workers who rise up to mutiny against their superiors and then suddenly transform their office structure into a pirate ship and start to sail away on the financial seas. After a great triumph against the financial giants they meet an unsuspecting end. Terry Gilliam wrote and directed this piece that was actually a short feature that was featured before the actual feature in the Monty Python movie: The Meaning of Life as a kind of warm-up. Truly one of the best sketches in the movie and an interesting peek to the earlier works of Terry Gilliam before he went on doing more independent projects like Brazil. He's original talent can be seen here very powerfully.Interesting note: Gilliam originally visioned this to be an animation but being already bored with animating, he decided to make it in live-action and it possibly turned out to be more expensive than the rest of the film and went way over the budget.

MisterWhiplash While the feature this short is presented after in succession, Monty Python's the Meaning of Life, is a very good comedy with the scattered laughs bringing some of their best moments, in sheer audacity and daring with the film-making the prize has to go to writer/director Terry Gilliam for his 'The Crimson Permanent Assurance' (in fact it did at Cannes in 83). The key to understanding it, or at least appreciating it, is knowing that it was originally meant to be shorter, much shorter, as one of the animated segways that connect the segments in the Monty Python sketches. This idea soon expanded for Gilliam, and his 'director bug' (right before his take-off to Brazil and right after his first two solo director outings) took over into this ideally cartoonish, surrealist, and perfectly anarchic comedy of will-power.Sum up the story quick, will do- the workers at the Crimson Permanent Assurance company are old, very old, and very tired and beat down, like the ship rowers in Ben Hur. It finally breaks for their to be a revolution against the bosses, and the old men fight back. On this simple premise, Gilliam builds and builds (with extra help from cinematographer Roger Pratt, and a couple of the other Pythons as extras) until one wonders how this can even conceivably be made as entertainment. I once remember hearing Gilliam on the commentary for Holy Grail saying (sarcastically) 'the stuff in this film is so unjustifiable, its insane', and the same can definitely be said about this short film. It's big (this took up a million of the 7 or 8 million budget of Meaning of Life), its violent, its surprising, and while it maybe lacks only the sort of focused, dry British genius that was in the other members of Python, it certainly doesn't lack the daring of pushing the envelope (in this case, the Assurance 'ship' gets pushed off the world itself). Even when I wasn't laughing hard I was struck by the style of the direction, the fun in these old-school British actors, and the swashbuckling music.

keuhkokala This short movie was originally just one sketch in Monty Python's Meaning of Life (in the Part Middle Age, I think) and was to be done by Terry Gilliam by his famous animation style. Gilliam, however had directed his first movies by then (Jabberwocky and Time Bandits) and was somewhat bored with animation. So, thankfully he got to do this one live-action with his own actors, own budget and own will. So it became the only Python budget to go over the budget and the sketch bloated from five minutes into fifteen. So, the movie didn't fit into the center of the movie, so it was made as a "starter" to the feature movie. The Pythons themselves surprisingly do not feature all in this short. Only Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam can be seen as window cleaners and Eric Idle's voice can be heard when the pirates are singing Accountancy Shanty. This is only good, because the short makes you really confused, whether you have gone to a wrong movie. The best thing about this short is that it's so visually great. Every time I see it, I'll find something new. And the connections between accountancy and piracy are hilarious. Using filing cabinets as cannons and so on are very funny inventions. Every Gilliam fan will love it, but if you hate not only Gilliam, but do not like Python either, then avoid. 8/10

craigjclark Originally intended to be part of the body of "The Meaning of Life," Gilliam's loony story about pirate accountants was found to go on too long and tended to overpower the rest of the film, so it was excised and made into a separate short subject. This was probably for the best since it has a strikingly different tone from what the rest of the Pythons were doing.Gilliam's visual sense, as always, is a marvel to watch, and his attention to detail is stunning. Watch for his cameo -- along with Michael Palin -- when the CPA attacks its first competitor. And Gilliam regular Myrtle Devenish -- who was Beryl in "Time Bandits" and Jack Lint's secretary in "Brazil" -- also puts in a welcome appearance."Weigh the anchor."