The Fisher King

I DVRed quite a few films during the three months of free Showtime that I had. But I DVR a bunch of movies during ny of the free preview weekends. During another such weekend quite some time ago, I put The Fisher King on the DVR. Recently, I finally got around to watching it.

In the late 1980s, Jack Lucas (Jeff Bridges) is a shock jock doing a morning program on one of New York's more popular radio stations. He takes calls, and dispenses really snotty advice, which seems to be the point, to get people to laugh at the idiots who call in. Anyhow, one of those callers is a man who was rejected by a yuppie woman on a date, to which Jack responds that the guy probably shouldn't have tried with the woman because of their completely different social classes. It was enough to make the caller snap, as Jack finds out watching the news that the caller went out and shot up a yuppie night spot, killing a bunch of people.

We move three years forward. Jack is out of radio, unsurprisingly since who would want the guy after his shtick made a guy go on a shooting spree. He's reduced to working in a video store, having gotten the job thanks to his girlfriend Anne (Mercedes Ruehl) who owns the place. But Jack doesn't seem to have much lust for life, to the point that he's thinking of committing suicide. But before he can do that, he's attacked by a couple of young thugs of the sort that populated the city before Rudy Giuliani got really tough on crime. Just as they're about to kill him, however, another deranged person comes out and attacks Jack's two attackers, driving them off.

This guy calls himself Parry (Robin Williams), and seems like the sort of mentally ill nut-case that nobody would want to get to know, or at least would want to stay the hell away from after getting to know the guy. Parry claims to be looking for the Holy Grail, and has visions of some sort of Red Knight who comes chasing after him in what turn out to be attacks of PTSD. Parry is looking for the love of his life, but has no idea where to find her.

And then Jack finds out the truth about Parry. He was married to one of the victims of the shooting at that yuppie night spot those three years ago, and it was that event that caused Parry to snap and become mentally unstable. Jack, feeling responsible for it, goes to apologize to Parry, but one thing leads to another and the two men get a fleeting glimpse of the woman Parry claims to be looking for. Jack realizes he has to get the two of them together as that's the only possible way to help Parry recover.

If the plot sounds a bit nuts, well, it is. Terry Gilliam directed, so with the whole Holy Grail plot you can be forgiven for having reminders of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But there are other movies I was thinking of, specifically the mental asylum in 12 Monkeys and the dystopia of Brazil, all raising common themes for Gilliam.

The acting is good although you may be annoyed by Robin Williams at times. That's not really Williams' fault as much as it is that his character, being mentally unstable, can be a difficult one to get close to. And since he's the main character, it makes the movie a bit tough to watch at times. I also found that the movie ran a good 20 minutes too long for me. It probably should have clocked in under two hours, but it's 137 minutes.

Still, the flaws aren't that big and obviously other people won't be irritated by Williams' character as much as I found myself at times. With that in mind, The Fisher King is absolutely worth watching.