Poster boy for co-dependency needs patching
Patch Adams A Film Review By Michael Redman Copyright 1999 By Michael Redman
*1/2 (Out of ****)
Mediocrity is a pox on civilization. In our heavily consumer oriented society, there is an enormous demand to churn out "stuff." What would happen to our economy if we didn't feel the need to have more things? To make us buy more, businesses need to produce a ton of product. The sheer volume of items necessitates that most of them are of dubious quality.
The film industry is like any other. In order for studios to survive, they have to make money. The prevailing attitude is that more films equal more profit.
Some movies obviously exist only to put wares on the screen and to do that, less talented people are used. There aren't enough great directors and actors to create the number of films necessary. For some reason, it's never crossed anyone's mind that the real equation is quality films = more profit.
Often, mediocre films are more of a pain for the audience than the horrendous ones. At you can have a good time making fun of bad movies.
I'm not suggesting that "Patch Adams" was tossed out just to rake in the bucks. My guess is that someone was asleep at the wheel. It features an accomplished actor and a potentially engrossing story, but it's as dull as could be.
Hunter "Patch" Adams' (Robin Williams) desire to become a doctor has an unusual genesis. Checking himself into a mental institute after a suicide attempt, he discovers that he can help the other patients by clowning around.
Patch could be a poster boy for co-dependency. He explains that he likes devoting himself to others because then he doesn't focus on his own problems. He decides that he wants to be a physician, leaves the place and a couple of years later enrolls in the Medical College of Virginia.
As a med student, Patch's antics at the school's hospital catch the attention of his soon to be arch-enemy, straight-laced Dean Walcott (Bob Gunton). The dean is so opposed to the goofiness that he wants Patch kicked out of school although he's one of the top students. He writes in Patch's academic file that he shows "excessive happiness."
I walked into the film knowing little about its history and wondered about its odd mechanical pacing. There also seemed to be no reason that it is set in the early seventies. Then it struck me. It must be based on a true story. The movie is an adaptation of a book by Hunter Adams who founded the Gesundheit Institute, a free clinic.
Robin Williams is an amazing actor. While he is adept at dramatic roles, his forte is over-the-top free spirits. That's what makes his failure here so remarkable. Patch is exactly the character he should be best at, yet even the scene where he and another mental patient are battling fierce imaginary squirrels falls flat. Something holds him back.
Most of the rest of the cast is two-dimensional. For a film that champions seeing patients as human beings, it's curious that the ones here are cardboard characters. Peter Coyote as a man dying of cancer is refreshing because he seems like a real person. Unfortunately he's in the film for only about two minutes.
The audience is blatantly lead by a ring in its nose from scene to scene. We're not left to our own emotional decisions: we're hit over the head with them. Shaved-headed children with cancer, an elderly woman whom Patch makes laugh, a beautiful woman who can't love because of her abusive history. When a group of students fix up an old house to use as a clinic in the Andy Hardy "Hey, let's put on a play! We can use the barn and my mom can make the curtains!" mode, they laugh and roll around while painting each other.
There might as well be giant signs flashing: "Feel good now!" "Feel bad now!"
"Patch" is a good title for the film. It is a patchwork of every manipulative scene you can think of. The full-of-life student fights stodgy establishment types. There's a touching death. Then there's another. The film doesn't trust us to get it the first time. The dean tries to kick Patch out and later he tries again.
Worst of all is the final courtroom bit. Scary-looking old men sit in judgment of a man who only wants to help people. The room is packed with Patch's supporters. Williams makes a supposedly impassioned speech about the humanity of all. It has as much emotion as his earlier statement "humans are the only animal that kills members of its own species" contains truth.
Most of the blame must be placed with the director Tom Shadyac and screenwriter Steve Oedekerk. Shadyac also directed the first "Ace Ventura" movie. Oedekerk directed the second one. Need I say more?
The real Adams is to be admired for his devotion to treating patients as people rather than diseases. The film has a number of worthy messages about the state of the modern medical business with HMOs and managed care. The "doctors are not gods" theme will resonate with a number of people, but it's so poorly produced that no one will care.
(Michael Redman has written this column for over 23 years. After being inundated with Y2K information, he thinks that Kevin Costner's "The Postman" might have found a bigger audience had it been released late this year. Redman@indepen.com will reach him...probably.)
[This appeared in the 1/8/99 "Bloomington Independent", Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be contacted at Redman@indepen.com]
-- mailto:redman@indepen.com This week's film review at http://www.indepen.com/ Film reviews archive at http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Michael%20Redman
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews