By Umer Nangiana
The genius of Steven Spielberg and the brilliance of Robin Williams combined to produce a masterpiece, Hook, the 1991 fantasy adventure flick. It was the directorial excellence of Spielberg that turned a fairy-tale or simple bed-time story into a major film that got five Academy Award nominations and became a big commercial success of its time.
However, it was Williams who gave life to the movie. Playing the legendary Peter Pan and his grown up version Peter Banning, the fabulous actor and comedian almost single-handedly turned the fairy tale into a virtuoso entertainment. Not to take anything away from any of the actors in the film’s huge cast — brilliant in their own respects — but they too were looking towards one man, Peter Pan that is Robin Williams.
The film was screened at Katara Drama Theatre as part of “Remembering Robin Williams” by Doha Film Institute (DFI) from September 11 to 13. There could not be a better tribute to revitalise the memories of the legendary actor who is no longer with us.
After making the world laugh with his jokes and his acting for decades, the master comedian and actor died last month, apparently committing suicide at his house in California, USA, thus bringing a sad end to an era.
First day of Hook’s screening at Katara attracted a decent crowd and they thoroughly enjoyed the 20-year-old flick as laughers could be heard every few minutes in the hall. And it was not just children. Hook is a movie for everyone. This comic brilliance would leave every adult viewer nostalgic, wishing to get his or her childhood back by the end of the movie.
Besides Robin Williams, the movie stars Dustin Hoffman as the titular character of Captain Hook; Julia Roberts as Tinker Bell, the fairy; Bob Hoskins as Smee; Maggie Smith as Granny Wendy; Caroline Goodall as Moira Banning; and Charlie Korsmo as Jack Banning.
The film acts as a sequel to JM Barrie’s 1911 novel Peter and Wendy, focusing on a grown-up Peter Pan who has forgotten his childhood. The grown up Peter Banning is now a successful corporate lawyer with a wife and two children. He has forgotten his past in the fairyland called Neverland where no one grows old.
However, Captain Hook has not forgotten the wounds inflicted on him by Pan in his childhood and returns with revenge. He kidnaps his children. So now, Peter must return to Neverland and reclaim his youthful spirit in order to challenge his old enemy.
Spielberg reserved the most dramatic entrance on screen for Captain Hook. He successfully managed to create a character that possessed both the charisma and the evil of a villain, commanding a sprawling pirate bay in Neverland. And Hoffman was his usual best in the role. He delivered at par with Williams, at times even better.
After Wendy’s failed attempts to reawaken the past in Peter Banning, it was up to Tinker the fairy to lift a drunk Banning up into Neverland. There, he awakens in disbelief, and reveals himself to Hook who threatens the children unless he accepts Hook’s challenge to a duel.
However, he orders their execution after realising that Peter Pan is out-of-shape, terrified of heights and has no recollection of his former life and their past battles, in one of which Pan had cut off Hook’s hand and fed it to a crocodile.
Here, Tinker Bell intervenes and managed to get three days in which to prepare Peter for a war. His former gang, the Lost Boys, now led by Peter’s successor, Rufio (Dante Basco), at first dismisses him as an old man who has no hope of regaining his former glory.
The story was understandably predictable yet it was delightful to see it unfold. From there on, Peter regains his strengths, recalls his past, fights Hook, sends him into a giant crocodile’s stomach and returns home with his children.
Amid some brilliant performances, Williams’ shone. Born in 1951, the American actor had first started as a stand-up comedian back in 1970s. After rising to fame as Mork in the TV series Mork & Mindy, Williams went on to establish a career in both stand-up comedy and feature film acting.
He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as therapist Dr Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting. He received two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and five Grammy Awards.
The other film in DFI’s tribute was the 1989 classic, Dead Poets Society, which has its last show today (Sunday) at 7pm.
