The Fisher King

Rating:
Summary: HEALING THE HEARTS OF MEN
Review: In my humble opinion, Terry Gilliam is a genius -- without question one of the most talented and imaginative direcors working in film today. All of his work -- BRAZIL, TIME BANDITS, 12 MONKEYS, &c -- stands up head and shoulders above almost everything else the motion picture industry spews out, but THE FISHER KING is, I believe, his greatest achievement.

All of the actors are superbly cast -- and each of them throws themselves completely into their assigned roles, to the point of BECOMING their character, which, unless I miss my guess, is what acting is about. Robin Williams couldn't be more perfect as Perry, the heartsick man with a shattered heart, who has lost his beloved wife in an act of senseless violence. Jeff Bridges, as the radio 'shock-jock' whose flippant comment to a disturbed listener triggered the shooting, is utterly convincing as the guilt-ridden Jack, locked into a downward spiral, despite the love and care vested on him by his girlfriend (Mercedes Reuhl). Then there's Amanda Plummer, portraying the hapless, mousy Lydia -- with whom, as soon as he sees her, Williams falls head over heels in love.

There are four characters here in a great deal of pain, each trying in their own way to deal with it -- with varying degrees of succcess. The way in which their paths cross, and merge, in this story, and the impact they have on each other's lives, makes for one of the most moving tales of love/pain/healing that has ever been brought to the screen. Gilliam's own unique vision guides it along nicely -- you can see his most obvious touch in the visions experience by Williams of the Red Knight, one of the most frightening apparitions you'll ever run across.

The film vividly shows the torturing, deep pain of utter loss, as well as our vital need to be loved -- and our need to perform acts of kindness, and to seek forgiveness for the wrongs that we have done. The love story between Williams and Plummer is one of the sweetest -- and most convincing -- ever in a film. It's enough to give us hope that, truly, anything is possible. Jack's road to redemption is a rocky one -- as is his own love story, which is bound up with that of Perry and Lydia. The lengths to which he ultimately will go in order to help his friend are stunning, inspiring, and, most importantly, believable.

THE FISHER KING is a modern masterpiece -- and one that will, I think, continue to move viewers for many, many years. It's story is a timeless one, skillfully brought to the screen by a modern master. If you want to show someone how good film can be, show them THE FISHER KING.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best Arthurian movies going
Review: I have a passionate love for the Arthurian legends. To paraphrase Robertson Davies, however, these tales have a poor history of being adapted to stage or screen. "Camelot", "Excalibur", "First Knight", "Prince Valiant" -- if you really love the tales, you know just how short these films fall.

Then there is The Fisher King.

No, you won't find King Arthur here. You won't find Camelot or Guenivere or the Questing Beast. What you WILL find is the essence of the Grail story. Parry (Robin Williams) is Percival the Fool as well as The Fisher King himself; Jack (Jeff Bridges) is a fallen king-of-radio. Both are wounded and in a related manner. Neither faces his problems head on. Each needs another to pave the way to forgiveness, acceptance, and redemption. The ultimate physical object that leads to this may be a swimming trophy, but it is also the Holy Grail itself. Why? Because it truly is, if you only believe.

Along the way you meet the not-so-in-distress damsels (Mercedes Ruehl won an Oscar for best supporting actress; Amanda Plummer, who deserved one as well), the company of knights-errant (the homeless of New York City), an evil Red Knight, two even more evil local toughs, and the false-prophets from the land of television. Each of these is a person, or a type, from our own world. They also happen to fit the tales of the Holy Grail rather well. Forced comparisons? I leave that to the individual viewer to decide, but I found the characterizations marvelous. This is not a film about Real Life, but it is a film about something truer, something closer to the soul.

This is a film that deserves multiple veiwings. If nothing else you are going to want to see the scene in Grand Central Station more than once (if you know the movie, you know what I'm talking about; if not, you are in for a beautiful treat). This is a film that teeters between rampant silliness and powerful truths. Somehow it never feels schmaltzy, forced, or preachy.

Watch this film.

Let the little man dance!

Rating:
Summary: "I love New York in June!"
Review: Former Monty Python regular Terry Gilliam has directed 13 movies, including the mythical "Baron Munchausen" in 1988, and 2 obvious classics, "Brazil", and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". The year 2003 will bring us his "Good Omens". But in 1991, he gave us the mystical, magical gem "The Fisher King", a tremendous saga about the triumph of the human spirit. "The Fisher King" stars Jeff Bridges as another wounded, lost victim of the psychosis we call the modern world. He's a former talk radio star who destroys his life and many others' with a mean-spirited, thoughtless on-the-air remark. Fractured with guilt, he meets a demented homeless man(Robin Williams), and becomes enlisted in the unlikely quest for the Holy Grail. Robin Williams performance as Parry, the lost and wounded street person, is the genesis for his future demonic destitute crystalized 11 years later in "Death to Smoochy". Academy Award winning Mercedes Ruehl co-stars. This widescreen DVD(with trailer) is yet another terrific transfer from Columbia Tristar. And Sony gives it the anamorphic treatment. "The Fisher King" is a complete film; funny, compelling, innocent, and irrational. And like an old Howard Hawks epic, it's a street-level expose about the real relationship between two men. Love, Sanity, Redemption, and Ethel Merman. "The Fisher King" is a bountiful fantasy brimming with wonder and escapism....and isn't that what cinema is really all about?

Rating:
Summary: A Forgotten Gem -Myth, Magic, Laughs, Redemption
Review: "The Fisher King" combines an almost independent film sensiblity (the gradual narrowing of focus on the 4 lead characters almost to the exclusion of the Big City around them)with a big-budget film appetite, 4 solid performances by the leads (plus one spectacular supporting actor as a down-and-out showgirl/singer with a mustache), an intelligent story and funny script into a funny, enjoyable, moving film.

Robin Williams tempers some of his manic "Good Morning Vietnam" energy with some of the sensitivity and depth he won an Oscar for in 'Good Will Hunting". His string of commercially successful films-with-a-heart (Fisher King, Awakenings, Patch Adams, Good Will Hunting, Good Morning Vietnam, Dead-Poets Society, What Dreams May Come.. )while not without a few duds - is unmatched by any actor today (Tom Hanks a close 2nd; Bill Murray has the critical acclaim but not the commercial success and John Travolta has moved on to other types of films...).

Anyone who enjoyed 'Patch Adams' or 'Good Will Hunting' should appreciate this film. Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: The Bungled and the Botched strike back
Review: Terry Gilliam's post-Python oeuvre usually strikes me as rather cold and overly intellectualized. I 'like' his movies very much, but can rarely get close enough to 'love' them. "Brazil" and "Twelve Monkeys" being chief offenders in this complaint. I enjoyed their visions of futuristic dystopias, but never felt involved on an emotional level. Sure, "Baron Munchausen" tickled my whimsy-bone, and "Time Bandits" gave me kid-sized guffaws, but both those films also had a good dose of textbook thinking behind them, enough to keep the audience always an arm's length away.

"The Fisher King", like no other film in Gilliam's catalog, hits me on an emotional level. It is a visceral experience, unlike anything else I've seen from this offbeat director. Layered with tangible romance and pathos, Gilliam has created a film that will stand the test of time, even when its highbrow ideas become irrelevant.

Two scenes in particular illustrate the human beauty that this film is so adept at conveying. The first involves Parry (Robin Williams) and his daily routine: watching and following Lydia (Amanda Plummer), his from-afar crush, on her morning commute to work. Camped out in Grand Central Station, all we see are the throngs of people crowding and pushing their way to their trains. But when Parry sees Lydia, all that stops. Or rather, it changes. The music starts, tasteful glowing light emanates from the ceiling, and all the commuters take partners for a waltz. It's a ridiculously sublime moment, beautiful in all ways. It goes on until Parry suddenly loses Lydia in the crowd, and the dancing abruptly stops.

The other scene also involves Parry and Lydia, who are this time joined by Jack (Jeff Bridges) and Anne (Mercedes Ruehl). After scheming to get Lydia to come to dinner with them, Jack and Anne sit back to watch Parry try and woo her. His does so in the most childlike and endearing way: by imitating her clumsiness, her awkwardness, and her shyness. It's a mostly wordless scene, punctuated by the sight of dropped dumplings, Parry's stirring rendition of "Lydia the Tattooed Lady", and Jack and Anne themselves getting caught up in the romance.

But don't get me wrong. The whole movie isn't sweetness and light. There are actually some terribly horrific scenes, most of them psychological in nature.

Jack is a former radio shock-jock, whose off-handed remark drove a listener to spray a yuppie restaurant with bullets. He's now down on his luck, drunk, and of the belief that he's eternally doomed, his karma forever destroyed by that one moment. Bridges gets both sides of Jack's persona right. He's slimy and selfish when on top of the world. Dirty, dreary, and dead inside when stuck in the gutter (a side curiosity: I count eight times Bridges has played a character named Jack, and that doesn't even include the surname of his character in the "Last Picture Show" movies).

Parry, even more so than Jack, is tormented by psychological demons. He is connected to Jack in a horrific way, one that I am loath to divulge here. A former university professor, Parry has taken on the insane alter ego of a homeless knight. Williams shines in this role, his boundless energy and improvisational spirit giving some much needed light to what could have been a dark character. Not that the darkness doesn't shine through. Parry, stalked by a mysterious Red Knight riding an unholy steed, has a series of near breakdowns. Williams has to show both the unbalanced side of Parry, and the one that used to exist, functioning within society. He does well on both counts. (N.B., the movie takes on greater meaning when you realize that Parry is short of Parsifal, an important character in another story about the search for the Holy Grail; recommended reading)

Plummer and Ruehl do important work as the women driving the men to great deeds. Plummer, an unconventional beauty, makes you believe Lydia's shyness and sadness, while also understanding why Parry has become so smitten with her. Ruehl, dressed her in her tackiest Erin Brockovich clothes, doesn't get as much as she gives from Bridges' Jack. But she plays Anne as a strong but wounded woman, caught between a need to love and nurture Jack, and a desire to get away from his harmful nature.

This is Gilliam's second quest-for-the-Holy-Grail picture. Although off-centre at times, this might be his most cohesive movie, utilizing a fairly standard three-act structure to go along with it's quest theme. Don't worry, Gilliam fans, the director's trademark esoteric visuals survive intact. Manhattan is captured as a gorgeous, but dangerously labyrinthine, wonderland. The screenplay, by Richard LaGravenese, throws in literary and historical allusions, weaving themes and motifs effortlessly throughout. It saddens me that, except for the marvelous "The Ref", LaGravenese has wasted the considerable talent he shows here, turning out schlock after schlock during the years following this, his initial triumph.

"The Fisher King", billed as a modern Arthurian fable, lives up to that description. Crass commercial culture, shock radio, homelessness, and even a sly reference to the nascent AIDS epidemic form the backdrop for this remarkable story, which mixes the entire range of human emotions in a very satisfying and entertaining stew.

Rating:
Summary: Realizing a great dramatic actor.
Review: I was never overly impressed with his comedic career, it was OK but nothing great. This was the movie that I realized, Robin Williams is a great dramatic actor. His performance in Dead Poets Society was great, and when this followed it up, I was convinced. The interaction between Jeff Bridges and himself was absolutely wonderful. The characters were so believable and you felt for every one of them. It was such a magical movie! To this day it is still one of my favorites.

Rating:
Summary: ABSOLUTELY THE BEST MOVIE EVER!!!
Review: This movie is pure magic!! It is the ultimate in "Jungian" adventure and "Hero" searching ala Joseph Campbell. Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges bring these compelling characters to life...and beyond. Any student of psychology should perform a Jungian review on this movie. Joseph Campbell's "Hero With a Thousand Faces" also describes these characters with unparralled accuracy and definition. Not even "Star Wars" (the original Episode IV) can compare with the intricate psychological spectacular that is "The Fisher King." Oh, did I mention that I loved this movie???

Rating:
Summary: amazing
Review: This is the best movie I saw in a few months. Stunning. I don't want to spoil it to you, so no details. But it's touching enough to be a date-kind of flick. It's mood changes and characters are deep and believable. The movie deals with murder, suicide, loss of beloved, madness, self-centeredness and still manages to be funny, entertaining and feel-good movie after all. Brilliant.

Rating:
Summary: A brilliant disguise...
Review: In a world gone mad, who do you really find under the bridges, amongst the trash, or sleeping on the park benches? The drunk, the pervert, the insane? Do you ever think that you might find a product of the American dream? Or ... could you possibly find a being of holy origins? This thinly veiled tale may make you look twice the next time you happen upon the "wrong" side of town. A must see for all.

Rating:
Summary: Yet Another Terry Gilliam Masterpiece
Review: Try not to be put off by Robin Williams (trust me, its not overacting!), and stay with this remarkable story of Pain, Healing, Redemption, Love and Understanding. If you enjoy great acting, action, and astounding filmaking, sit back and enjoy and feel yourself touched and changed forever.