The larger-than-life persona and indomitable spirit of Ronnie ‘The Hawk’ Hawkins are writ large on Anne Pick’s award-winning featurelength documentary. Filmed over 18 months and narrated in his best Blues Brothers voice by Dan Aykroyd, Still Alive & Kickin’ tracks the emotional rollercoaster that became The Hawk and his family’s�life following his diagnosis with pancreatic cancer in 2002.
With Hawkins only given a matter of months to live, the filmmakers originally thought they were capturing the last chapter in a hugely colourful life story. This explains the film’s mix of biography and tribute as it covers Hawkins’ life through archive footage and interviews with, among others, Kris Kristofferson, Bill Clinton, Robbie Robertson, The Hawk himself and his long-suffering wife Wanda. Mercifully, and possibly due to a combination of Hawkins’ untamed lust for life, his faith in ‘The Big Rocker’ and the involvement of a mysterious healer applying the principles of quantum physics, all traces of cancer miraculously disappear. Not only an uplifting human interest story, then, but also a memorably up-close-and-personal portrait of one of the best-loved adopted sons of Canada.
