Fictional Attorney of the Month: Peter Banning
Robin Williams portrays Peter Banning, a successful corporate attorney visiting family in London when mysterious events disrupts his otherwise-orderly routine. So opens Hook, a 1991 retelling of the story of Peter Pan, where Peter has left the lost boys in Neverland, grown up, and become about as far from childlike ways as can be imagined.
Mr. Banning has forgotten this past and is rudely reintroduced to it as his children are kidnapped and taken away, interrupting his "vacation," or, really, his attempts to work remotely in the early 90s with attorneys across the Atlantic. He is about as humorless as one might expect an overworked corporate lawyer to be. He introduces himself to Captain Hook as "Peter Banning, Attorney at Law." (That's a real sign of confidence.) He caps a series of insults with Rufio, interim leader of the Lost Boys, with the closing remark, "Don't mess with me man, I'm a lawyer!"
But it's perhaps the restyling of Shakespeare's cry about killing lawyers that is the most memorable moment of this lawyer being dropped into Neverland and experiencing a world that is not as impressed with his credentials and qualifications as he is. And he's this month's Fictional Attorney of the Month.