New Films: Patch Adams (12)

Director: Tom Shadyac Starring: Robin Williams, Monica Potter

Through the hallowed halls of medical college goes Hunter "Patch" Adams (Robin Williams); a winsome shock-doc who has the patients in stitches while giving a collective hernia to the stuffy establishment. Patch, you see, subscribes to the theory that laughter is the best medicine of all. Idling on your deathbed? Well, here's Patch to stick an enema bulb on his snout and send you off with a smile. Still not happy? No problemo: Patch has a whole heap more comedy tricks up the sleeves of his regulation white coat. Still that's Patch Adams: Awakenings without the angst, Dead Poet's Society without the heart. It's like the ultimate distillation of the ultimate Robin Williams movie: the life sucked out and replaced by syrup.

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