The Fisher King

Although Terry Gilliam probably has more failures than successes to his name, one can usually rely on him for ambition. Sadly, in this respect, The Fisher King is Gilliam-Llte, a tediously-written saga of redemption and love neatly packaged in the Hollywood manner, complete with an over-exposed Gershwin tune and a fireworks-over-Central-Park ending.

Jeff Bridges plays radio shock-jock Jack Lucas, whose nasty handling of one listener triggers a shooting rampage. Jack is so devastated by this that he goes into a three-year tailspin becoming a booze artist who hides from the world in the apartment of his girlfriend, Anne (Mercedes Ruehl). One drunken night as he is about to drown himself in the Hudson, Jack encounters a street crazy named Parry (Robin Williams), who it turns out lost the plot after his wife died in that same shooting.  When he learns this, Jack sees a way that he can redeem himself, notably by helping Parry to win the woman of his dreams, Lydia (Amanda Plummer).

Gilliam's failed struggles to bring Cervantes' delusional hero to the big screen and perhaps The Fisher King at least got him somewhere close to it but he would have been well-advised to leave Richard LaGravenese’s laboured script, his only significant variation from the familiar being the periodic introduction of a huge blood-red horseman with flames shooting from his body (a device which recalls Gilliam's Brazil,1985) who represents in a very literal way Parry’s demon. But Parry is no Don Quixote tilting at imaginary foes and Gilliam never manages to make him more than Robin Williams does, which frankly is simply to play Robin Williams playing a variant on his over-exposed Holy Fool persona. Even the retrieval of the Holy Grail which Parry believes is hidden in a billionaire’s mansion on Fifth Avenue and to Jack offers a pathway through Arthurian legend to regain Parry's sanity is tritely execuated.

Mercedes Ruehl won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her turn as a good-hearted Brooklyn broad and she provides a bit of fun but the characteristically laconic Bridges struggles with a part that requires him to emote on cue and Plummer simply over-acts to an embarrassing degree.

Gilliam, despite his considerable track-record with fantastic worlds, never achieves the magical realism that might have made this film work. Indeed despite Gilliam's evident skill in staging it,The Fisher King is dramatically superficial. Surprisingly it was a critical and commercial success in its day and even today it gets more than its fair share of critical approbation.

 

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