Patch Adams

We've seen this Robin Williams before in films like Good Morning Vietnam and Dead Poets Society: the crowd-pleasing riff-meister playing a character arc in which he is temporarily sobered by tragedy but emerges triumphant in the lives he has touched with humor. We've just never seen that character so compromised by such an aggressively feel-good film. Williams stars in this fact-based story as an unconventional medical student whose approach to healing with humor alienates him from The Establishment while endearing him to the audience. Certainly the first half of Patch Adams belongs to Williams the Clown let loose to do his stuff, and not coincidentally it's also the most entertaining half. His rebel with a mile-a-minute mind provides plenty of laughs for an hour; then again, he has to, since Williams provides the only spark of invention in a narrative that can only go in one possible direction. It's in the grueling second half that the film plays to the most cliched devices for emotional manipulation, and shows no understanding of when not to use emotional manipulation. Patch Adams not only dares you not to be uplifted, it jams a forklift under your seat and slowly grinds you into the roof. Not recommended. (S. Renshaw)