In this nightmarish futuristic satire from director Terry Gilliam, Jonathan Pryce plays Sam Lowrey, a government statistician who chooses to blind himself to the decaying, drone-like world around him. Whenever real life becomes too oppressive, Sam fantasizes (to the tune of the 1940s big-band hit Brazil) about being an alternate-world superhero, forever rescuing beautiful Jill Layton (Kim Greist). The omnipresent computer that controls everything in the real world malfunctions, causing the mistaken-identity assassination of an innocent citizen. When Sam routinely investigates the error, he meets Jill, literally the girl of his dreams. It turns out that she is an associate of a terrorist (Robert De Niro) whom the computer had originally intended to target for execution. The price Sam pays for tumbling to this fact is a close encounter with the man in charge of torturing troublesome citizens (Michael Palin). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide