Films involving Cancer

Cancer: Major Films

Title	Hawks (1988)
Alternative/Original Title
Disability	Cancer
Country	UK
Length	107
Genre	Black Comedy
Rating	2
Director	Robert Ellis Miller
Cast	Timothy Dalton Anthony Edwards Janet McTeer Camille Coduri Jill Bennett Sheila Hancock Connie Booth
Notes	This is an odd film which mixes uncomfortably fantasy and realism. There's a silly beginning in which Dalton takes a car and the car salesman on a frightening ride. Later in hospital because he has terminal cancer he plays the funny man. Opposite him is the morose Anthony Edwards an American pro football player who also has cancer. In a corner of the ward is a neat little cliche which is the bed that is always surrounded by curtains and no one sees the person inside. Dalton's hair is falling out but he wears a fetching little bob hat. Edwards still has his hair but has to use a wheelchair to get about. I complain about all those TV films in which everyone is exhorting the patient to be positive. In the British version, being positive means giving meaning to the last days of your life by living it up. Remember the journey to Las Vegas in "Girls' Night" (1997). Is Vegas really suitable as a detour on the way to the cemetery (well, yes, it is because you'll meet there lots of people, mainly women of large proportions, sitting in front of slot machines acting like zombies. Our boys steal an ambulance and have fun. At the end of the trip, or what brings the trip to an end is Edwards dying. But who cares because the film makers haven't bothered to catch our interest. The sad death of a young man goes over our heads. And the whole has been more black than comedy.

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