Patch Adams: Movie Review, DVD Review, HD DVD Review

A contrived mix of melodrama and sentimentality shot through with Robin Williams’ exhausted style of comedic shtick.

This 1998 movie came on the heels of Williams’ “What Dreams May Come,” “Jack” and “Father’s Day,” leaving plenty wondering what had happened to the actor’s former biting edge?

There was a time when he was pop-culture's edge, but by the mid- to late 1990s, he made an unfortunate decision to court more tears than laughs, and thus, with each ensuing film, he became a deeper, more cloying caricature of himself.

All those decisions come to a head in “Adams,” which features Robins as a former psychiatric patient turned medical student who believes it’s laughter that the sick and dying need, not medicine.

While a case could be made for that, it isn’t made here.

Rated PG-13. Grade: D.