Fair enough that this film is a vehicle for Jeff Goldblum, and a character loosely based on the infamous neurosurgeon who invented the transorbital lobotomy ought to give him plenty to work with. In those days, there were no meds yet, to control patient behavior, and lobotomies were a response to that urgent need. The real-life Dr. Freeman was obsessed with the need for social conformity, and thought that his compliant, lobotomized patients were an improvement on disorderly nature. So, how could Goldblum turn him into someone so bland? His Dr. Fiennes has no insight into his own status as monster. He seems to be a latter-day Don Quixote, meaning well, riding the roads with his '52 Plymouth (instead of a horse named Rocinante) with his faithful Polaroid-Land-Camera carrying sidekick, Andy (instead of Sancho) by his side. Maybe its a statement about the banality of evil. It does not work for me.
Review of The Mountain
