there is a scene in patch adams in which patch is in the center of a courtroom , surrounded by people who are giving him a lively standing ovation because of his strong-worded attack on a group of stoic doctors . 
when i noticed that the audience with whom i saw this film was reacting the same way , i realized that i was going to have a hard time finding someone who agrees with me about the quality of the picture . 
you see , patch adams revolted me beyond all boundaries . 
i hated this movie for every second that i sat watching it , and i actively hate it now , days later , with the simpering , superficial , nauseatingly sentimental images forever plaguing my memories . 
i hate every element of the film , beginning with tom shadyac's shameless direction , and all the way up to the misguided and mishandled themes that the screenplay wants so desperately to convey . 
the badness of patch adams is stupefying . 
it's confounding . 
i can't believe a film can be this bad . 
and yet , it's based on a real man who probably has a good point to make . 
in the film , patch is played by the undefeatable and indefatigable robin williams , in a performance of such insulting pathos and sledgehammer sympathy that i wonder now if he is even human . 
in the beginning of the film , patch commits himself to a mental institution because he doesn't want to kill himself . 
while there , he notices that the doctors don't care about the patients , and that the best way to get through to the patients is to treat them like human beings . 
so , patch goes on a crusade to be a great doctor who actually talks to his patients . 
he goes to medical school , where he meets truman ( daniel london ) and convinces him that it's good to help people . 
he also meets carin fischer ( monica potters ) , the anti-male med student who just wants to go through the motions and be a successful doctor . 
naturally , the dean of the medical school ( bob gunton ) hates patch , and wants to thwart his plans , even though patch gets the highest scores on all of his exams . 
so patch decides that he's going to build a free clinic in the middle of nowhere to help people with any problem they may have . 
and that , my friends , is the synopsis for what is easily the most abhorrent picture of 1998 . 
on a superficial level , the film is not particularly bad : i wouldn't say the cinematography bothered me , and most of the performances seem to be exactly what shadyac was aiming for ( i actually liked potter's performance , even if she is wasted ) . 
but the film fails fundamentally in execution . 
every scene swells with grand , " emotional " music , played at maximum volume just to get us all to cry real hard . 
take , for instance , the first scene , which shows patch sitting on a bus . 
we don't know patch yet , but there's sad music , and it's supposed to make us really sad that he's sad . 
later on , patch makes a lot of progress : he helps a dying patient ( peter coyote ) to enjoy the last days of his life , and the music as patch is pushing the patient recklessly through the halls of the hospital is very lively . 
and when that patient finally dies ( spoiler alert ! ) , the music is very very sad . 
but the problem with all of this is that the music should not be the center of the emotions . 
real drama is character-based . 
you grow to like someone , and then something bad happens , and you feel it . 
we don't ever grow to know the dying patient ; he's simply a vehicle for patch's greatness . 
real drama doesn't seem forced , or present just to make the audience cry . 
that's why patch adams is not real drama . 
it goes for every cheap tear imaginable , wringing tired and overbearing sentimentality out of every scene . 
even scenes that have very little impact on the overall film are drowning in marc shaiman's sickening musical score . 
sentimentality like this is indeed bad . 
but it's not as bad as half-baked , simplistic themes . 
you see , patch is a really great student . 
he aces his tests without studying , and does it so effectively that people think he's cheating . 
but patch doesn't think that memorizing facts is the way to become a good doctor . 
 " why don't we see patients until the third year ? " he bursts out every three seconds . 
well , patch , that might have something to do with the fact that you need to learn something before you go treating patients . 
not everyone has the capability of memorizing facts with no effort . 
most of us have to study . 
and a doctor who really wants to help , but doesn't know a toe from a finger , probably won't be too successful in preventing death . 
oh wait , i almost forgot : the point of doctors is not just to " prevent death , " but to " improve the quality of life ! " 
yes ! 
that is true ! 
and you can not do that without studying . 
you can not do that without going to medical school . 
what patch never seemed to understand was the possibility that maybe , just maybe , it is a good idea to study first and talk to patients later . 
follow the rules ? 
bah ! 
who needs the rules ! 
only uptight doctors follow the rules . 
the real saviors are the ones running around the hospitals with big red spheres on their faces and sporting baggy yellow pants . 
and then there's the free clinic issue , which i find shockingly , frighteningly idealistic . 
a free clinic . 
in the middle of the forest . 
where patients can be taken to be helped . 
for free . 
how will patients be transported to the free clinic ? 
will it have an emergency room ? 
or is it just for mental patients ? 
and who , may i ask , will pay for it ? 
the film does give some token attempts to question patch's motives ( i think another character asks him how he's going to pay for it , in addition to a little bit of meaningless blather about hmos and medical insurance ) , but they certainly don't explore or challenge patch's ideas to any meaningful extent . 
reader , please understand this : i am not making any kind of judgment on the real patch adams . 
i know nothing about him . 
if his beliefs mirror those of this film character , then i might like to have an intelligent discussion with him about them . 
but regardless of what the real patch adams believes , the themes put forth in this film are simplistic and phony . 
and in the last scene , the big , obligatory courtroom scene that forced my lunch halfway up my esophagus , patch does a lot of shouting . 
actually , robin williams does a lot of shouting . 
he shouts a lot about helping people , and a lot of people cry because they are moved by his words . 
i won't tell you that you can't be moved by his words , because i , too , was moved by his words . 
i was moved in such a profoundly negative way that i was reminded of how cheap and phony a cinematic experience can be . 
patch adams is the cheapest of them all . 
