The archetype of Medical School Comedy is the British film DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE to which no American flick can hardly dare to be compared.Yet this film and Gross Anatomy deserve an honorable though distant second place. In BAD MEDICINE young Americans out of the zone of consideration for American schools transplant themselves to Latin America to study medicine against the challenges of a strong local culture, particularly the absolutism of Latin schools where discipline is considerably more rigorous than back home.There are two characters who best represent the reaction of the locals: the director of the school who openly tells Americans: HERE WE ARE THE ELITE and the director's secretary who proclaims her love for American culture having studied it thoroughly through Philip Roth's pulp novels.But there is a serious side to the dictatorial ways of the director. A doctor handles people's lives and must account for his actions.That degree of understanding of the serious task at hand is bye the bye entirely lost in PATCH ADAMS who can cause a young med student's death and make a joke of it.

This movie is hilarious to those of us, over 10,000 people in the US, who attended the school that this movie is based on. Yes, there really is a school like this. The guy doesn't get a test grade because he was in the wrong seat - yep, they really do that. You know how the people in red jackets come to take attendance? Everyone runs to their seats as soon as they see them coming. There are armed guards in the streets, guards on the road to search your car or bus. It was quite an experience and adventure being there. The movie is a fun remembrance of life in Mexico,....eh um Guatamala I mean....I loved it! There is some macabre humor with the cadavers, but for most people in the medical field that's how the deal with working on them.

You'd have to be a fan of farces to like this. It has some novel ideas, such as illegally obtaining a fresh cadaver that has to be transported from the city morgue to the school, while rigor mortis is beginning to set in. Alan Arkin has a secondary, not a starring, role. He brings more to the part than the writer gave him. Steve Guttenberg is surprisingly good as the son of a doctor who can't get into an American medical school, or even a first or second grade foreign one. Curtis Armstrong, in particular, is terrific in his medical student role. Over all, however, this is strictly a B movie. Julie Haggerty is terrible as the glamorous student with whom the school director (Arkin) is enamored. There is nothing alluring about her looks, and her approach to comedy acting is out of sync with the rest of the cast's.

'Bad Medicine' is not one of the best med-students comedy that I have seen. It's method of comedy and hilarity wavers frequently, perhaps some of the jokes are just too subtle or perhaps they are too dated and the finished product reminds me of Young Doctors in Love, a movie full of stupid comedy that should be funnier but for some reason, just isn't.Steve Guttenberg plays Jeff Marx, a struggling first-year med student at a fourth-rate, sketchy medical school in Mexico. Classes are taught in Spanish, they all share one cadaver, and their praticioner field trips are little more than public relations opportunities. Despite the family trend of medical professionals, he is certain that he doesn't want to be a doctor, but the outrageous situations that ensue are about to make him reconsider. The ambitious students, which includes Curtis Armstrong as pharmacology expert, Dennis Gladstone, Julie Hagerty as the soft-spoken Liz Parker, Julie Kavner as the witty Cookie Katz, and Robert Ramanus as Carlos. Working cleverly under the nose of the self-involved school director, Dr. Ramón Madera (Alan Arkin), they seek to secretly help the town peasants with their medical ailments.The movie tends to drag on at points, but this particular comedy might be one of those 80s comedies best suited for lazy weekend 'noon viewings. If nothing else, viewers might be attracted to its fairly familiar cast, which also includes Gilbert Godfried (not doing his shtick) and my personal favorite, Taylor Negron as Pepe the Cab Driver (who ironically, also appeared in Young Doctors in Love).