Film Review: Patch Adams

Patch Adams also takes some much needed shots at the American Medical Machine, a machine that somewhere along the line transformed itself from caring about people to caring about forms, insurance, awards, and money with the business of really caring about people at a distant 5^th place.

Patch Adams begin with Robin Williams checking himself into a sanitarium after nearly committing suicide. Brilliant, funny, witty, and above all sensitive, he discovers the magical effects of listening to people and seeing beyond the obvious to the core of human suffering. Energized, renewed, and appalled at the deplorable care administered by the doctors at the sanitarium, Patch checks himself out and starts medical school pursuing a professional lifetime of helping people.

The film is filled with carefully heart warming shots of humanity juxtaposed to a type of aggressively ignorant pomposity on the part of the so-called medical establishment. You can’t help but feel outraged when you see a doctor referring to a patient who may require amputation as a condition without giving the patient the dignity of bothering to even know her name. If nothing else, Patch Adams when viewed by medical establishment may evoke an renaissance of what used to be called good old fashioned "bed-side-manner’.

The film has a home-movie feel to it. The camera work is intimate and engaging and the acting is first rate. I found it stimulating listening to those argue their positions because they felt they were right. I suppose each of us, according to the knowledge we possess at any given snapshot in time could lead us to feeling with absolute certainty that we are indeed correct. It was amazing watching the softening of the guard as Patch’s techniques of kindness seemed to touch even the hardest heart within the "establishment".

I give Patch Adams an unqualified approval. I doubt that anyone who sees it will not be affected. I was and I hope you will be too.

See you at the movies

Mike Way