Brazil (1985)

Terry Gilliam's nightmarish vision of a distopian future has Jonathan Pryces' Sam Lowry trapped in a world of bureaucracy. A Winston Smith like character, he dreams of fighting the machine, literally, before flying away with the woman he loves. When an administrative mistake gives him the opportunity to right a wrong he finds himself dragged into a world of freedom fighting and revolutionary plumbers, fantasy, plastic surgery and torture.

Terry Gilliam's films often have a large scale and slightly confusing feel about them and this is no exception. Pryce is good as our everyman hero, if a little watery, and there's a good cameo from Bob Hoskins as well as nice performances from Ian Holm, Ian Richardson, Jim Broadbent and Peter Vaughan. Although I like the character, the casting of Robert De Niro as Harry Tuttle the underground plumber feels too much like a grab for a wider audience. Other than Michael Palin, whose performance is one of his best, the real stars of this piece are the director's vision and the sets. Given the modern practise of using CGI for everything it's great to see real actors using real props.
As with a lot of Gilliam's films, Brazil was beset with production problems and arguments with the distributors. Universal Executive Sid Sheinberg tried to block its release in the belief that it wasn't commercial enough but after several rather public arguments and a critics' screening in which it was hailed as the best film of the year he backed down.

It's been released in 3 different cuts over the years, the shortest being at 94 minutes, and although the final cut is widely thought to be one of the top 100 movies ever made I would argue that at almost two and a half hours it's a bit too damn long.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/?ref_=nv_sr_1