Review – The Freshman

The first time I saw this movie was when it was originally released. Back then I was a film student myself, so it wasn’t too hard for me to be charmed by this tale of a fish-out-of-water kid from Vermont (Matthew Broderick) who ends up pulled into a bewildering series of plots in the Big City. Naturally Brando is great as the mastermind behind the scheme, re-creating one of his most famous characters so closely that the original’s studio sued. Throw in Penelope Ann Miller as the love interest and a water monitor lizard playing a Komodo dragon, and the set is complete. Fans of the serious cinema won’t get much out of this fluffy caper flick. But then fans of the serious cinema might see themselves a little to clearly reflected in the obnoxious professor, a character every film student must know in one form or another. The scene in which the gangster’s daughter makes an idiot of the windbag is a sanity-saving moment for anyone who’s ever studied cinema under such a creature. Worth seeing