PATCH ADAMS

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 3 out of 5

Because of: nudity, sexual jokes, thematic elements

Rated:

Few people ever check themselves into a mental institution, but the suicidal Hunter Adams (Robin Williams) has reached the end of his rope. Convinced he will kill himself at any odd moment, he commits himself. Once in the hospital he learns how to deal with his emotions and begins to work with the patients around him, bringing smiles, laughter, and joy into their troubled lives. At last he has found a purpose, a passion! 

He wants to become a doctor, to "connect" with people who are hurting. Unfortunately, the reception is not a warm one, especially from his college-age brainaic roommate... and perhaps more importantly, the school's head dean. "Patch" doesn't like it that he is unable to communicate or interact with patients until his third year of medical school, so he begins to bend the rules. He visits the hospital, he clowns around for the cancer patients, he even attempts to befriend the hospital's "monster patient." All while juggling school, friends, and the woman who is desperately trying not to be a part of his life.

What it really boils down to is a man full of good intentions, full of heart, full of courage, and full of fun. The film does an excellent job portraying not only the humorous side of Patch, but the very real and wounded side as well. We laugh with him, we cringe with him, we cry with him. We marvel at his insight and wish our own doctors had half his experience in bringing a smile. Unfortunately, with this tear-jerking, warm-hearted film comes a proper amount of common smut to gain the rating. Sexual humor appears periodically, along with many slang terms for certain pieces of the male anatomy, and common profanities. (Including several misuses of God and Jesus' name.) Patch, to "lighten" a serious event, constructs a pair of women's legs spread on either side of a doorway the doctors who deliver babies are forced to walk through.

Another "blush moment" comes at the very end, when we glimpse full back nudity several times as Patch makes his way down the graduation isle. (As a parting gift to a particularly snotty dean.) The film has a good heart, but due to the problems mentioned above, I would hesitate in recommending it too widely. Additionally, it contains strong thematic elements, an illusion to past child abuse, the death of a main character, and a scene in which Patch rails at God for allowing something bad to happen. (Some Christians have been angry by this, but I found that the ending of that particular sequence is very supportive of God's everyday messages and reminders that life will go on.)

It holds up strong moral values, and gets right to the heart of the issue -- "being a doctor should be more about making people's lives easer, about lifting up their lives, about letting them live their last days in laughter, than just 'solving' the problem. People have names; they are not their disease or problem. Being a doctor is about being a friend, a listening ear." With the above cautions in mind, Patch Adams is a good film. However, if the problems drive you away, your best hope would be to catch a showing on TV in which the nudity and most of the derogative language would be omitted.

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