FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

aarosedi Many of the actors' parts in this film had been a sort of a poking fun their most well-known screen roles or celebrity personas. Marlon Brando plays a comedic version of Don Vito Corleone, the character that he parodizes with delight throughout the film. But there is a certain finesse and tenderness in his portrayal of Carmine Sabatini. He made the mobster employer more amiable and endearing than any other mobster character featured in the Godfather films, the kind that doesn't resort to uttering threats regarding offers that one can't possibly refuse. He relies instead on his charm in being an emphatic persuader (e.g. marrying off his daughter) in recruiting the film school freshman or convincing him to stay in his employ. It's his most accessible comedic film performance, if not his entire career. Broderick play Clark Kellogg, a clueless kid that has none of the wiles and a stark contrast to the role that made him the household name, the suave titular character in the hilarious Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Clark who arrives in NYC to enter college but not before he is befriended and smooth-talked by Victor Ray played by Bruno Kirby who will then lead the desperate student Clark to his boss/uncle Carmine. The henchman that Kirby plays is similarity to Clemenza, the one that introduces the young Vito Corleone to the mob life in the classic film The Godfather Part Two, the film which is coincidentally being studied in Clark's film school class, the one that professor Arthur Fleeber conducts. Paul Benedict plays the eccentric and narcissistic film professor who is a penchant for title dropping films every now and then to rub off his expertise in film knowledge that on the surface seems quite ill-suited, but upon closer scrutiny it's incredibly spot-on. Some people might remember him as that Mad Painter guy that always gets into different sorts of trouble because his zealous way of teaching number recognition in those Sesame Street comedic vignettes. Bert Parks, well-known as being the former Miss America pageant host, who also got his share of the fun as well, dedicating the "There She Is" song to a hapless komodo dragon. His musical performances near the end of the film performing classic hits such as "Tequila" and "Mona Lisa" with a live band in a spectacular stage set designed by the legendary Ken Adams is a beholding spectacle. There's also Maximilian Schell, celebrated for his Oscar-winning performance in Judgment at Nuremberg, who hams through his role as Larry London, the chef who's responsible for preparing the dishes for the exclusive nomadic club Carmine is hosting. Also notable are the enjoyable performances of the young actors that will soon make their mark in the film world. Penelope Ann Miller's Tina is someone who embraces her father Carmine's notoriety as a mobster which is quite a hoot, Frank Whaley's charming take as the late-'80s-early-90's dapper roommate/classmate who gets dragged into Clark's mob errands, and B.D. Wong's take as London's Zen-ish associate gives the film it's most significant quote, "Well, without humor, what do we have?" I had to applaud how Andrew Bergman turned a somewhat grim premise into a charming one where he created an insightful script where all the film's characters and elements are seamlessly juxtaposed, kind of resembles the Kandinsky painting seen as a poster on Clark's dorm room. Not a single scene or character is wasted, each one contributes to help the audience understand what the plot is about. And for a film that was released also in the same year as The Godfather Part Three, which can be considered a sad but satisfying conclusion to the Corleone family saga, and Good Fellas, the film that deconstructed the gangster genre, The Freshman kind of gives us an affectionate if not sentimental glimpse of the people living in the fringes of the society that we should be always wary of. My rating: A-minus.

Desertman84 The Freshman is a crime comedy film starring Marlon Brando and Matthew Broderick together with Bruno Kirby and Penelope Ann Miller.It was written and directed by Andrew Bergman.Clark Kellogg is an aspiring director who arrives in New York City to attend film school. However, moments after he arrives in the city, he's robbed by Victor Ray, leaving him no money for the $700 in books required by his instructor, Arthur Fleeber. A few days later, Clark runs into Victor and demands his money back, but Victor has already lost it on a horse race in which he wasn't entirely sure the animal he bet on was a horse. Instead, he offers to fix Clark up with a job with his boss, an "importer and exporter" named Carmone Sabatini.Clark's adventures with Sabatini are just beginning when he's instructed to pick up a package from the airport. Clark is expecting it to be contraband, and he's right, but not in the way he figured -- it turns out he's accepting delivery of a komodo dragon, which is to be served at a "gourmet club" specializing in dishes prepared from endangered species.Buoyed by the charm of Matthew Broderick in the title role and Marlon Brando as a caricature of his Godfather persona, the film benefits from solid casting, a clever premise, and sweet humor.It's a nice premise, film informing life, and Bergman's film succeeds thanks to its sprightly pace, modest but fully realized ambition and Brando's sublime comedy performance.It is definitely one of the best comedic films in the 1990's.

blanche-2 Mstthew Broderick is "The Freshman" in this very clever film written and directed by Andrew Berman. The film also stars Marlon Brando, Penelope Ann Miller, Paul Benedict, and Jon Polito.Broderick plays Clark Kellogg, who leaves his midwest home to attend NYU film school. He's just off the plane when he's approached by a gypsy cab driver who winds up stealing his stuff. The next thing he knows, Clark has taken a job with a mobster, Sabatini (Marlon Brando) as the cab driver's way of making it up to him that he can't pay him back the money he stole. His job is to go to the airport and pick up a package, which turns out to be a Komodo dragon. After that, he becomes engaged to Sabatini's daughter (Miller) who has shown him the real Mona Lisa stolen by her father. He's visited by the FBI. Then someone shows him his new passport - he is to become the moustached Rodolfo Lasparri of Palermo.Some of this film is laugh out loud funny, with terrific dialogue, situations, and performances. Brando, in a reprise of Vito Corleone in "The Godfather" is a scream, and in Clark's film class, we see scenes from "The Godfather" throughout the film. Clark even gets the "baci di tutti baci" from Sabatini, as Freddo got it from his brother Michael. The best scene is Clark and his friend trying to get the dragon from the airport to the designated location.Very, very funny movie. Broderick is terrific as the naive and confused Kellogg. Everyone is excellent. Highly recommended.

Michael Neumann Matthew Broderick is the fledgling NYU student of the film's title, made an offer he can't refuse by an aging Italian padrone bearing an uncanny resemblance to The Godfather's Vito Corleone. Hardly surprising, since the part is played by Marlon Brando, and that's the only real joke in the entire film: Brando's word-perfect parody of his earlier role. Elsewhere the movie is simply writer director Andrew Bergman's third person film school fantasy, with a screenplay only an underclassman could appreciate. It might have been a modern screwball classic except for the slack pacing, lame jokes, annoying voice-over commentary (always a sure sign of lazy writing), and transparent plot twists, including a climax lifted directly from 'The Sting', but with the outcome laboriously spelled out beforehand. Brando himself admitted the film was a piece of garbage, and with good reason. It's almost worth the price of admission to see him carrying his considerable weight so gracefully around an ice skating rink, or hear Bert Parks sing the Miss America theme song to a Komodo Dragon, but otherwise this freshman flunks.