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The Professor and the Madman

2019

Farhad Safinia

Mel Gibson, Sean Penn, Natalie Dormer, Stephen Dillane ...

6.2

2,926

Drama. Thriller A professor begins work compiling words for the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in the mid 19th century and receives over 10,000 entries from a doctor at an insane asylum.

	Author	Review
United States	Jay Weissberg Variety	"The good news is that Gibson is fine; it’s everything else that doesn’t work (...) Editing, alongside truly uninspired dialogue, are the picture’s biggest flaws"	NEG
United States	Elizabeth Kerr The Hollywood Reporter	"[It] isn't outright bad, or even unwatchable, but it is plagued by multiple personalities of its own, and has no clear idea of what it wants to be; it feels like a film whose director was removed from the picture at some point."	NEU
United States	Nick Allen rogerebert.com	"It struggles to offer its own intellectual thrills (...) 'The Professor and the Madman' suffers not just from dull self-seriousness but its general direction (…) Rating: ★½ (out of 4)"	NEG
United States	William Bibbiani The Wrap	"The OxfordDictionaries.com website defines 'boredom' as 'the state of feeling bored.' Which is about as insightful as anything one can find in 'The Professor and the Madman'."	NEG
United States	Tara McNamara Common Sense Media	"This isn't a bad film; it's beautifully shot and sensationally acted, and it tells a fascinating real-life story"	POS
United States	John Serba Decider	"[It] isn’t the unwatchable mess we expected it to be. I wasn’t bored. But it’s not quite worth a recommendation either."	NEG

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