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PATCH ADAMS Send This Review to a Friend
When you have Robin Williams in a film half the battle is won. But these days Hollywood hardly ever seems to leave well enough alone. "Patch Adams," based on the true story of a doctor who believes in dedicated service to patients as human beings instead of just cases, is whipped up into a cornball entertainment playing for humor and inspiration Hollywood-style instead of providing a more realistic look at a strong subject.
Dr. Adams becomes the standup comedian that only Robin Williams can be as he mingles with and learns from the mentally ill, amuses child and adult patients in a hospital, and battles a stuffed shirt doctor and traditional rules at medical school. He risks being tossed out, has to convince a medical board to let him graduate, wins over the heart of a woman along the way, and faces tragedy. What would such a film be without one of those scenes in which all of his fans turn up to support him before the conservative bigwigs?
This is made endurable only because it's a Williams vehicle. "He has a question," says Williams of the catatonic man who sits at all times with his arm straight up in the air. One of the year's best and most outrageous sight gags occurs when Williams is assigned the task of providing the decorations for a meeting of gynecologists at the school. They are greeted with a building doorway framed by sculptures of giant spread apart women's legs through which they must pass.
Directed by Tom Shadyac from a screenplay by Steve Oedekerk, the film tries too hard to be one of those feel-good experiences and even another enjoyably outrageous sight-gag at the end doesn't wipe away the excess. A Universal Picture release.
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