Patch Adams Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		2.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.5

Patch Adams Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman February 23, 2024

Patch Adams is the fictionalized telling of the life of Hunter "Patch" Adams, a real doctor whose unorthodox approaches to medicine -- actually considering things like compassion, personalization, and humor in his practice -- are the stuff of medical legend and the subject of this 1998 film starring Robin Williams as the title character. The film is directed by Tom Shadyac, a filmmaker who has a somewhat impressive Comedy filmography to his name -- Ae Ventura: Pet Detective, The Nutty Professor, and Liar Liar all released in the years preceding Patch Adams -- but this quote-unquote real-life biographical sketch film is not amongst his best work. This is a well-meaning film -- truly, it wants desperately to uplift and inspire its audiences -- but it ultimately falls flat as a laborious, manufactured, and manipulative affair that allows Robin Williams to do what he does best but never really rise above the barrage of cliche that drives the film from impressively dark start to predictably cheery finish.

Hunter “Patch” Adams (Williams) is suicidal and self-commits himself to a mental hospital. He’s depressed and hopeless, but after a short stay, he discovers a desire to help people. He leaves the facility and enrolls at Virginia Medical University where he finds himself desiring to be a doctor but, at the same time, to really connect with his patients, to know their names, to be tender towards them, to make them laugh. “I just believe there’s more to being a doctor than memorizing facts about the ventricular artery,” Patch says. But his refusal to toe the traditional line and make medicine a deadly serious business, as the school’s stern dean Walcott (Bob Gunton) demands and his intelligent but cheerless roommate Mitch (Philip Seymour Hoffman) desires, places him in the crosshairs. But even as he academically excels, he finds himself always on the verge of being dismissed from the school. His crime: trying to cheer up patients. He slowly gains a few allies such as classmates Cairn (Monica Potter) and Truman (Daniel London) and shares his dream of opening a free clinic where laughter is the best medicine and compassion comes before collecting fees, but with expulsion always looming, Patch must choose between wheat he deems ethically right and toeing the line to earn a diploma that will mean nothing to him if he can’t personalize his care.

Patch Adams cannot escape a feeling of complete assembly line production, from top to bottom, and that is its true weakness, a weakness that permeates every frame of the film and renders its aims at heartwarming, crowd pleasing fair with a social message on the importance of total care for the patient rendered at least partially ineffective. Here is a strange film that is about speaking to the human heart, yet it never manages to do so. Adams grabs the hearts of those around him, but the film never grabs the hearts of its audience. For all of the good it tries to achieve, it simply plays to a familiar refrain that is bereft of individuality and life, even as the film is about individuality and life. Do not be mistaken: the film has its moments that tug on the heartstrings and create an effective, if not still very fundamental and unoriginal, mood and draw into the story, but Patch Adams cannot escape the grasp of choking familiarity and plotting, right down to the "courtroom" finale.

At least Robin Williams delivers a hearty performance, constrained by the film's strict adherence to formula as it is. He seems to connect with the character and the content and embrace the man and the methods that made the real Patch Adams a model for this movie. He's surrounded by some good support work, including the ever-reliable Bob Gunton as a character who is as polar opposite to Adams as possible. Yet that is one of the movie's downfalls: it's just hard to imagine someone so dour as Dean Walcott (they are undoubtedly out there), but Gunton definitely captures that no-nonsense approach extraordinarily well. Philip Seymour Hoffman is amazing, as usual, as Patch's equally cold and methodically focused medical student roommate.

Patch Adams Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

This is another depressing transfer from Universal. The presentation is flat, dull, and flavorless, both in terms of its texture and its color. It is very clearly another in the long, and sad, line of Universal catalogue titles that is simply a drop of a DVD era master onto a Blu-ray with no consideration for how it will actually look, only to get it onto the market. While casual audiences might call it "good enough" because the 1080p muscle does allow for a certain gain to clarity and definition, videophiles will find this one to be severely lacking.

Indeed, one could reasonably copy and paste a review from many Blu-ray catalogue releases from Univeral and have it apply to Patch Adams. It is dismally artificial, offering a heavily processed look that shows worn down detail and depressed colors and destroyed is any semblance of the picture's natural filmic appearance. Grain is nearly gone, leaving behind a trace of clumpy noise and resulting in a waxy picture, certainly not waxy to the most debilitating extent, but clearly smoothed over and absent that crisp film finished look. Details are poorly defined, whether basic faces and clothes or the various hospital interiors, warm university offices, outdoor areas, or the like. Nothing looks at all good; the whole film is absent more than a trace resemblance of the natural film qualities inherent to the original image.

Colors, too, are hopelessly dour and depressed. The palette lacks even a hint of liveliness, robbing everything from the red clown noses to the would-be lush natural greens of the wonderous 100+ acre expanse, seen from distance, that plays a vital role in a couple of the film's most critical scenes. Indeed, color is just bland with no sense of vividness, fullness, or punch, foregoing nuance for flat and uninteresting hues. Black levels fare rather poorly, whites are bland, and skin tones are pasty and unhealthy in appearance. The image is also home to sporadic spots, speckles, and fibers. Compression is at least not poor.

Patch Adams Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Patch Adams features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. It's more than serviceable, but it's certainly not a noteworthy listen. The syrupy score (is it ever just so generically heartwarming and coaxingly uplifting) is well presented with good fidelity and nice spacing, including a modest sense of surround usage and stage saturation. Light ambient effects help to nicely pull the listener into some of the film's key locales, like university classrooms and hospital corridors. Unsurprisingly, there are no big audio cues in the film; it's a simple sound design and it handles music and ambience about as well as can be expected for a mid-to-upper tier catalogue release. Dialogue is the chief audio element here, and it never stumbles, delivering solid prioritization, center placement, and detail.

Patch Adams Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Universal releases Patch Adams to Blu-ray with a handful of legacy extras. No DVD or digital copies are included with purchase. This release does not ship with a slipcover.

• Deleted Scenes (480i, 9:55): Several scenes without any titles or identifying markers.
• Outtakes (480i 4:55): Humorous moments from the shoot.
• The Medicinal Value of Laughter: The Making of Patch Adams (480i, 17:44): Looking at project origins (including conversations with the real Patch Adams), casting Robin Williams, Tom Shadyac's direction, the appearance of Make a Wish children in the film, the "poetic license" used in the film, shooting key scenes, and more.
• Storyboards and Final Feature Comparison (480i, 7:29): Just as the title implies, this extra offers a juxtaposition of hand-drawn storyboards and final corresponding clips from the film.
• Photograph Montage (480i, 6:39): Again, as the title suggests, this is a series of still, auto-advancing photos from the set, set to music.
• Theatrical Trailer (480i, 2:16).
• Audio Commentary: Director Tom Shadyac explores his film.

Patch Adams Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Patch Adams is a well-meaning movie with a few points of genuine heart and levity, but it's also grossly artificial and manufactured. Williams fills the character's shoes, but the film just rings hollow. Sadly, it's Blu-ray is no better, offering not dismal, but certainly depressing, video. Audio and supplements are OK if unremarkable. My prescription for Patch Adams: a new transfer for a potential future UHD release.