MovieChat Forums > Patch Adams (1998) Discussion > WHY does nobody like this movie?

WHY does nobody like this movie?

posted 16 years ago by Bridget52492
124 replies | jump to latest

Honestly, I can't wrap my mind around the fact that I can only find about 2 other people who like this movie.

I'm one of those people who cry at everything (and by everything I mean legit everything, including jewelry commercials) and of course, I was bawling from the second the film started right up until the end. I absolutely love it.

I understand the sap-factor of the movie and that it is melodramatic at certain parts, but I feel like it's necessary! Is that the only reason people don't like it? Because I honestly don't think it was a poorly made movie in the least. The acting is great, the part is perfect for Williams, and I think the script is at least decent. The monologue on the cliff is amazing. If you don't like sappy movies, that's your problem, but that's the only reason I've gotten so far as to why people dislike Patch Adams, but almost everyone says they hate the movie.

Can someone please fill me in on reasons people don't like this?! It's a mystery to me, honestly.

[–] Drooch (5333) 3 years ago

It’s a weird one for me. All of the criticisms about the film’s lies and manipulative schmaltz are accurate, and yet… Williams’ genius just blasts through it and wins me over.

In order to enjoy this film you have to:
a) be willing to completely detach it from the true story it’s based on, and
b) love Robin Williams in warm & funny mode sufficiently.

If you don’t, the film will fail to clear the monumental hurdles it creates for itself.

Good Will Hunting was made the year before - that film put healer-Williams in a much more realistic, complex and unsympathetic environment. It felt honest and Williams plays a role not written for him. Patch Adams feels like a cash-grab Williams vehicle which cynically co-opts a true story and plays fast and loose with it to maximise profits. I wouldn’t be surprised if many Patch-haters went in expecting more Dr. Sean Maguire and got covered in treacle.

But like I say, if you’ve got a soft spot for Williams and his unique magic then none of that matters, it’ll bypass your entirely legitimate objections and touch your heart.

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) a year ago

The reasons I didn’t like this movie:

- It’s overly sappy, simplistic and contrived
- It portrays doctors who take their job seriously as one dimensional villains
- It ignores all of the hard work Patch put into his profession and instead it portrays him as just a clown and not a hard working professional. It gives us no reason to take the character seriously and just seems to have been made so they would have an excuse to show Robin Williams acting like a jackass
- It tries to force us to having a huge emotional reaction at the end by fabricating a love interest, and a child molesting story, none of which happened.
- It shows Patch practicing medicine without a license and stealing from a hospital (both are horrible things to do), neither of which he really did, again we are supposed to be rooting for him.
- There is nothing subtle at all about this movie, for example: Patch is about to commit suicide after his fictional girlfriend died and then the overly sappy happy music starts kicking in once a butterfly flies by, geez it’s almost as if they are trying to say the butterfly is his fake dead girlfriend.

The movie is disgusting, it’s manipulative and it doesn’t represent Patch’s hard work, dedication and professionalism accurately, it just shows him being a clown. Don’t believe me, well the real Patch Adams didn’t like this movie either.