Product: The Fisher King [VHS] (1991)
Rating: 5.0
BOTH A SENSITIVE BUDDY MOVIE AND A LOVE STORY...
This is a beautifully directed film, as Terry Gilliam exacts bravura performances from the entire cast. This film is a cinematic masterpiece which the viewer will not easily forget.Jeff Bridges plays Jack, a radio shock jock whose unthinking tirade provokes a caller into a senseless act of violence that culminates in tragedy for a number of faceless New Yorkers. The tragedy derails Jack's career and ends his glitteratti lifestyle. Gone is the fabulous hi-rise apartment, model type girl friend, and high paying media career.Three years later, Jack finds himself living over a video store in a run down part of town with the video store owner, a blue collar ex-beautician, consummately played by Mercedes Ruehl, in a bravura performance that won her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, and deservedly so. Despairing of his life and looking like the bum he believes himself to be, Jack goes down by the water front and toys with the idea of killing himself.The issue is taken out of his hands when he is accosted by two youths who are sick of "his kind", as they apparently mistake him for part of the great unwashed horde of humanity of which they are heartedly sick. They beat him with a baseball bat and douse him from head to toe with gasoline, but just before they ignite him, a knight errant named Parry, touchingly played by Robin Williams, comes to his rescue and saves him from an untimely and excruciating death.Parry takes Jack to his refuge, and there Parry tells him of his quest for the Holy Grail. A curious bond between the two men begins to form. After Jack leaves, he later returns, curious to know more about this strange, but kindly individual who saved his life. Jack discovers that Parry was a former college professor whose own life drastically changed three years ago, when a caller to a shock jock's show went on a shooting rampage and killed Parry's beloved wife, one of the faceless New Yorkers who for Jack is faceless no more.Jack, realizing that their lives are intertwined by that tragedy, seeks redemption by trying to help Parry resume a normal life. Clearly mentally ill, Parry's battle with his inner demons is seen through his eyes. The viewer is made to feel the heartbreak and pathos of his fears which are brought to life in the fearsome visage of the Red Knight, a figment of Parry's imagination who appears intermittently throughout the film, until it gives way to Parry's fragmented recollection of that fatal night three years ago. Robin Williams portrayal of Parry is one of the most beautifully nuanced performances ever. That he did not win the Best Actor Oscar for which he was nominated was truly a major faux pas on the part of the Academy.Jack wades through Parry's fantasies of knights, quests, and the holy grail and discovers that Parry has fallen in love with an unlikely lady, the plainly hapless Lydia, played to perfection by Amanda Plummer. He engineers an unlikely meeting and sets in motion a dazzling sequence of events that ultimately results in his redemption as a human being, and an appreciation of his own lady love.This is a wonderful film that no movie lover should be without.