The Professor And The Madman (2019)

The story of the beginning of the work for the famous Oxford English Dictionary and the friendship that contributed enormously to it.

A pet project of Mel Gibson that took almost 20 years to make happen, The Professor And The Madman is a film based on an impressive true story, which could have become a real masterpiece if the two main creative contributors would have been allowed to manifest their genius in the conditions they required. But we will never know because the trial that took place did not end favourably for Mel Gibson. 

Made mostly in 2016 and released in 2019 post the legal battles, the film is the result of Mel Gibson's collaboration with the screenwriter he worked with on Apocalypto (brought here as a director), with the budgetary and creative restrictions imposed by the production company.

Even in these conditions, the film's real story is still fascinating enough to give us a captivating film and the cast is well chosen, led wonderfully by a Mel Gibson, Sean Penn and Jennifer Ehle for the ages and it beautifully unfolds a piece of lexicographical history embellished here and there with some romanticized speculations (possible ones but not backed by known facts).

Directed by:  Farhad Safinia (sub pseudonimul  P. B. Shemran)

With: Mel Gibson, Sean Penn, Eddie Marsan, Natalie Dormer, Steve Coogan, Stephen Dillane, Jennifer Ehle, Ioan Gruffudd, Laurence Fox, David O'Hara

Rating: 8/10