...a decidedly (and unabashedly) off-kilter premise that’s employed to watchable yet somewhat lackluster effect by Bergman...

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 14, 2025

The process of our watching the film is happy acquiescence.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 9, 2023

The nicest surprise of the summer. [Full review in Spanish]

| Nov 16, 2022

Where else in the universe can one catch Bert Parks offering covers of both "Tequila" and "Maggie's Farm"?

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 16, 2021

Marlon Brando delivers six-minute sonatinas of send-up and sincerity. He keeps things light but also from tilting over into something ephemerally broad like, say, "Mickey Blue Eyes,"a perfectly enjoyable comedy but a piffle next to this perfection.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Oct 8, 2020

Bruno Kirby provides an added shot as Brando's wiseguy right-hand man, and Paul Benedict practically steals the film as the over-opinionated film prof.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 28, 2020

Without Brando, the movie would be all gags and surfaces. But the big guy's self-parody is so charming that the whole picture resonates with his presence.

| May 21, 2020

The Freshman is like no other comedy. Just when you think you've figured it out, it ambles away.

| Aug 1, 2013

Here's a chance to see a mellow Marlon Brando in his greatest comedy performance.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 1, 2013

Andrew Bergman's The Freshman is a charmed comedy, the kind of seemingly effortless movie in which everything falls neatly into place, as if ordained by nature.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 1, 2013

Brando does a wonderful sendup of Corleone that manages to play off the Don's entrenched place in pop culture. But The Freshman is no copycat comedy.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 1, 2013

The Freshman has dead spots, certainly, but makes up for them with its moments of inspired craziness.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 1, 2013

In the case of this inspired comedy, the plot is a dignified bonkers combination of The Graduate, The Sting, The Godfather and The Producers.

| Aug 1, 2013

Though writer-director Andrew Bergman sets up potentially funny situations, the payoffs aren't nearly as clever as they need to be. Many situations don't pay off at all.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 1, 2013

Just when you've had it with the mistimed scenes and the clunky direction, writer-director Andrew Bergman comes through with an inspired piece of lunacy.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 1, 2013

It's fun to watch Marlon Brando parody one of his most justly celebrated roles.

| Aug 1, 2013

It's the kind of material that could easily fly apart into silliness, yet Brando and Broderick help the director to keep it anchored in a certain emotional reality, which is always the source of the richest comedy.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 1, 2013

Marlon Brando returns to the movies with one of his funniest performances as, in essence, Don Corleone with a screw loose.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 1, 2013

An underrated hidden treasure.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 8, 2010

No film offering the spectacle of a Komodo dragon being transported across a state line for immoral purposes can be lightly dismissed.

| Sep 8, 2010