Movie Review: The Freshman

If you want to see Marlon Brando deliver a better Don Corleone than his Oscar winning performance in The Godfather, you should check out The Freshman. This wonderful 1990 film, written and directed by Andrew Bergman, stars Matthew Broderick as a film student at NYU. There, he is inexplicably drawn into an international endangered animal smuggling/cooking ring masterminded by Brando's Carmine Sabatini, really a stand in for Corleone. This is a madcap comedy. It's amazing to watch Broderick's descent into the underworld where he encounters the stolen Mona Lisa, a rare Komodo dragon, gun toting Department of Justice agents and his own forced engagement. The movie has some wonderful performances by Bruno Kirby, Penelope Ann Miller, Paul Benedict and Maximilian Schell as a flamboyant chef. But this is Brando's movie. Even when he's not in a scene, you're thinking of him because he's pulling all the strings. And when he's on screen, even when he's ice skating, he's magnetic, hilarious and touching. And for good measure, you can't go wrong with Bert Park's outlandish version of the Miss America theme song. I really love this sweet, unpredictable film.