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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1990s
    Movies - 1990s Movies - F 2 Mins Read

    Fisher King, The (1991)

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    The Arthurian legend of a maimed warrior healed by the innocence of “a perfect fool” is given a magical update by director Terry Gilliam, tripping the light fantastic in his highly individual manner in this fantasy drama.

    Jack Lucas (Jeff Bridges) is a hugely successful but venomous shock-jock radio phone-in host. A typically reckless remark over the airwaves about “wiping out yuppie scum” triggers a random massacre at a fashionable Manhattan bar and Lucas goes into an alcoholic decline, taking his career with him.

    But a chance encounter with a mystical vagrant called Parry (Robin Williams) seems to offer him an opportunity for redemption.

    Parry fancies himself and his fellow street people as chivalrous knights in pursuit of the Holy Grail. He thinks he’s spotted it in a magazine photo. It sits in the library of the Fifth Avenue mansion of billionaire Langdon Carmichael, played by the film’s production designer, Mel Bourne, who deserves accolades for transforming New York into Gilliam’s magic kingdom.

    fisherking_001

    In truth, Parry the fool is a tragic figure, a former professor of medieval history who has escaped into a dream world rather than face the memory of his wife’s violent death. That horror is manifested as a flame-throwing red knight on horseback who looms up on Manhattan’s traffic-clogged streets to chase Parry.

    Gilliam has an eerie knack of wringing visionary heart-tugging power from unsentimental if bizarre material, and Bridges’s mythical search for redemption in the enchanted kingdom of New York fits the bill exactly.

    A magnificent perusal of what fires and feeds the soul, with super-tramp Robin Williams keeping his trademark zaniness in check until it really counts.

    But it’s Oscar winner Mercedes Ruehl’s electrifying portrayal of moral betrayal as Jack’s wildcat video-store owning girlfriend, Anne Napolitano, that you’ll remember long after the fade-out.

    Parry
    Robin Williams
    Jack Lucas
    Jeff Bridges
    Lydia
    Amanda Plummer
    Anne Napolitano
    Mercedes Ruehl
    Lou Rosen
    David Hyde Pierce
    Sondra
    Lara Harris
    Red Knight
    Chris Howell
    Television anchorman
    Warren Olney
    News reporter
    Frazer Smith
    Sitcom actor
    Harry Shearer
    Sitcom wife
    Melinda Culea
    Superintendent
    Al Fann
    Jamaican bum
    William Jay Marshall
    John the bum
    William Preston
    Homeless cabaret singer
    Michael Jeter
    Limo bum
    Ted Ross
    Stockbroker bum
    John Heffernan
    Straitjacket yuppie
    Richard LaGravenese
    Bag lady
    Anita Dangler

    Director
    Terry Gilliam

    Video

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