The Fisher King Blu-ray Review
Middle-Period Gilliam
Reviewed by Casey Broadwater, November 7, 2011
The Fisher King marked the start of a new era for director Terry Gilliam. His three immediately previous films—1981’s
Time Bandits,
1985's
Brazil, and 1988's
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen—comprise a loose thematic trilogy concerned with imagination as a
way to escape the ridiculous machinations and self-serving bureaucracy of mankind. Each, in its own way, is a high-concept satire, baroquely skewering
materialism and conformity, totalitarianism and hypocrisy.
The Fisher King is different. It's smaller-scaled, less special effects-heavy, and more
intimate—closer to a traditional Hollywood drama than any of his earlier work.
It's also the first of Gilliam's films that he didn't write himself. Penned by Richard LaGravenese, who later went on to write
A Little Princess,
Beloved and, most recently,
Water for Elephants,
The Fisher King nonetheless shares many of Gilliam's characteristic
preoccupations, from the Holy Grail and knights on horseback, to mental illness and a skewed, hallucinatory vision of the world. You might say it was
tailor-written for the former
Monty Python member turned imaginative filmmaker. It's unmistakably Gilliam-esque, a wild comic romance that
transplants elements of the Grail mythos to the dingy New York of the late '80s and early '90s.
In a brilliantly dynamic performance, Jeff Bridges stars as Jack Lucas, a talk-radio bad boy who routinely chews out and eggs on his sad-sack callers,
dispensing insensitive advice and derisively signing off with his catchphrase, "Thank God I'm me." Part Gordon Gekko and part Patrick Bateman from
American Psycho—but more misanthropic than the former and less psychotic than the latter—Jack is a filthy rich, high-powered narcissist
who lives in a downtown penthouse suite and gets chauffeured around in a stretch limo, sheltered in both from the riff-raff and homeless on the
streets outside. On top of the world, with zero regard for those beneath him, he's an absolute image of 1980s excess and utter
callousness.
This all changes, however, when one of Jack's callers takes his cynical guidance too seriously and goes on a pump-action shotgun-assisted murder
spree inside a "yuppie" nightclub, killing seven. Feeling responsible, Jack spirals into an alcoholic depression, and within three years he's poor,
working at a rundown VHS rental store owned by his longsuffering girlfriend Anne (Mercedes Ruehl), and dead set on suicide. Before he can go
through with it, he's beaten up by some teenaged street thugs and rescued by Parry (Robin Williams), a delusional, Don Quixote-ish bum and self-
described knight who's obsessed with finding the Holy Grail, which he believes is being held in a "castle" on the Upper East Side. Seeking atonement,
Jack is grudgingly compelled to aid Parry in his quest when he learns that the homeless knight-errant is the way he is precisely because his wife was
one of the victims of the nightclub attack.
This sets up the
The Fisher King's primary theme: the mutual redemption of the two men. The mythological figure of the film's title—a
wounded king healed almost inadvertently by a fool—can apply almost equally to Jack and Parry. Both are emotionally injured, and as they stumble
along together towards deliverance, each becomes exactly what the other requires. Jack needs lessons in humanity and humility, while Parry—
afflicted with visions of a Red Knight who gallops through the streets, shooting fire from his headpiece—just needs someone to
believe him.
Or, more precisely, to believe
in him.
He also needs love, and a sizeable subplot is devoted to Jack helping Parry woo his bespectacled object of desire, Lydia (Amanda Plummer), a bookish
and socially awkward accountant who doesn't know that Parry has been practically stalking her for the last few months. They're a good fit, and love
does indeed blossom, but the real relationship here—and the real reason to watch
The Fisher King—is the developing friendship between
Jack and Parry, two very different souls who need each other in ways that are difficult to express. Jeff Bridges—long haired and still looking young—is
terrific as a broken and bitter man who's trying desperately to rebuild credit after going morally bankrupt, and Robin Williams is in full-force comic
whirlwind mode, letting loose with his characteristic stream-of-consciousness improv babble and, at one point, even prancing around Central Park
completely naked. They make a great pair.
Although Terry Gilliam didn't write
The Fisher King, his directorial stamp is all over the film in its odd shots and wide-angled lensing, its
sustained tone of magical realism and surreal mise-en-scène, juxtaposing the grimy gray New York streets with the apparition of a flaming red
medieval knight on horseback. (Production designer Mel Bourne—a frequent Woody Allen collaborator—also deserves credit for the heightened,
exaggerated version of New York portrayed in the film.) Perhaps the most visually striking—and moving—moment is a scene set in Grand Central
Station during rush hour. As Parry catches glimpse of Lydia moving through the crowd, suddenly all of the harried commuters pair up and begin
dancing, turning the enormous terminal into a joyous ballroom, a shimmering reflection of Parry's feelings. Gilliam is one of few modern filmmakers
who can pull off this kind of capital-R-Romanticism without it going syrupy sweet. He also knows how to populate his films with enjoyably oddball
one-off characters. Look out for an uncredited Tom Waits and a deliriously good bit by Michael Jeter as a cross-dressing cabaret singer who does a
bang-up Ethel Merman impression covering "Coming Up Roses."
The film does have a few structural problems, most of which can probably be chalked up to Richard LaGravenese being a first-time screenwriter. The
plot loses focus in the lengthy middle section, and the women in the script are never really given much to do, but the strength of the performances
and Gilliam's imaginative eye keep
The Fisher King from ever going dull. For a film with a runtime of nearly 140 minutes, this one is brisk
and continually entertaining, and it closes with an ending that's well-timed and emotionally satisfying. While it doesn't rank quite as high as Gilliam's
best,
The Fisher King is nonetheless a magical experience, suffused with the kind of romantic drama and fantastical comedy that the
director does extremely well. It's also interesting as a turning point in Gilliam's filmography, an intersection between his medieval and Victorian-
themed prior films and the harder-edged futurism and gonzo Americana, respectively, of
Twelve Monkeys and
Fear and Loathing in Las
Vegas.