MBunge If you showed this movie to the survivors of the Rwandan genocide and asked them which was worse, seeing their families hacked to death with machetes or watching Dr. T and the Women…only some of them would choose the machetes.Dr. T (Richard Gere) is a gynecologist in Dallas, Texas. He has a wife (Farrah Fawcett) who's gone crazy, a daughter (Kate Hudson) who's getting married, another daughter (Tara Reid) who is half plot-device and half lame joke about the Kennedy assassination, a sister-in-law (Laura Dern)who is a lush and a horde of yapping women who jam his waiting room like it's an overstuffed hothouse of demanding Southern Belles. Though he's drowning in a stormy sea of estrogen, Dr. T is an insanely, sickeningly perfect man who is totally understanding of all of the crazy feminine behavior that buffets him every day. His only respite from it all are hunting trips with his buddies and an affair with the new golf pro at his country club, Bree (Helen Hunt).Like many Robert Altman films, the plot of this movie just sort of slowly spreads out in all directions like vomit on a bare floor. There's also enough trademarked Altman-babble in this thing to choke even his most devoted fans. Dr. T and the Woman is morally confused, emotionally phony, head-slappingly contrived and has an ending so stupid and bizarre that it would take an entire team of mental health professionals to figure out what the hell Altman was thinking. If there was ever a film that could be introduced at a competency hearing as evidence of senile dementia, it's this one.In fairness, most of the acting here is very mannered but relatively okay. The best performance actually comes from Shelley Long as Dr. T's long-suffering head nurse. She's funny and lively and the most enjoyable person on screen, until her character is brutally sacrificed on the altar of Altman's barnacle encrusted sense of humor. Helen Hunt might have been just as good as the independent Bree, but after creating the character it's really damn clear Altman didn't have the slightest idea what to do with her.If you're still not clear on how awesomely bad Dr. T and the Women is, Helen Hunt gets briefly but clearly naked in it and it's still unwatchable. That's right. It makes naked Helen Hunt unappealing. That's a magical feat on the order of turning lead into gold, which would make Robert Altman the master alchemist of cinematic suck.Now, if some Altman fans happen to stumble upon this review, I can already hear their excuses about how his films aren't meant to be conventionally entertaining and you have to appreciate his creative vision and I just don't "get it" and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The fact that several decades ago he injected some juice into American movies should not give Altman a get-out-of-jail-free card for the rest of his career. The fact that he keeps recycling the same old bag of tricks is not creative vision. It's a guy who doesn't have anything new to say as a storyteller.This movie is terrible. Even if you've liked some of Altman's other work, do not watch it.

MartianOctocretr5 Obviously a chick flick, women basically poking fun at themselves.The acting is over wrought for comedic effect, but goes too far, to the point of making the characters manic caricatures of themselves. With a banner cast like this film has, you should like somebody, but there's nobody to like. Their motivations are never understood, other than the overdone gender cliché, and therefore you are left only with mocking them. They are deliberately played as foolish desperate housewives, the hoi paloi of influential Dallas society. In spite of the director's awkward approach, some of the women turn in good performances. In particular, Goldie Hawn and Shelly Long bring dimension to their otherwise thinly written roles.A gynecologist is surrounded by women in every aspect of his life; work, family etc. He has some militia-style hunting buddies he hunts with, but that's it for male bonding. By the way, Elmer Fudd has a better chance of catching Bugs Bunny than these guys have of catching anything.Someone other than Richard Gere should have been cast in this role. He always looks like his mouth doesn't open properly, as if he needs jaw surgery. He has no comedic smarts, either, and ends up looking more psychotic than any of the female stereotypes. The wedding scene's predictable "twist" doesn't work, but the storm analogy was actually pretty good, and that would have made a fitting close to the story. But no, there is a woeful freak-out ending tacked on that pounds the whole movie into hamburger. What worked for Judy Garland in 1939 does not work for Gere this time around. 'Nuff said.Has moments, and the cast raises it far above the scripting.

Kassdhal This movie is based on a story setting up a "dream" environment for a men, surrounded by hundreds of women. Richard Gere plays a married gynecologist, father of 3 daughters, including the beautiful Tara Reid and Kate Hudson. We can see him entering into a downward spiral, from a happy and fulfilling life to something where many "pure women" troubles appear in his life without him having the slightest chance to understand it.The tone is subtle, soft, slightly dramatic, while keeping a good laughing value through the spiraling issues he has to face and which will slowly deconstruct his whole life.This movie let us keep a strong tone, playing with subtlety the "war of the genders" through the immersion of a seemingly "lucky" guy into an ocean of women that is is just unable to handle.I really liked it and, if you like subtlety and soft tones you will like it too. a good 8/10.

inspectors71 If you've never seen a Robert Altman film except Dr. T and the Women, you may wonder why there was so much press about his passing a week or two ago. Altman was considered a superbly talented and artistic film maker, but you would never know it from watching the dreadful Dr. T.Another reviewer on this site said not to expect "Pretty Woman," an immensely popular Garry Marshall flick with Richard Gere. The reviewer is right. While Pretty Woman was a repulsive story of gold-hearted whores, making a gajillion bucks from Gere-loving women looking for sweet, gold-plated romance, DTATW is an unfunny, unromantic, tedious story of pampered UMC types, circling around Gere, a befuddled and oh-so-handsome gynecologist who has a psychotic wife, two bordering-on-bizarre daughters, and a budding relationship with Helen Hunt, the only woman in Dallas who isn't a neurotic and hopelessly dependent hausfrau or wannabe.Other than the feeble attempt at providing some prurient pleasure for the boys with Farrah Fawcett and Helen Hunt naked (at different times) in the background, only a hopeless metrosexual could sit through this. For the ladies, Gere looks godlike, as usual, and Robert Hays has lost his geekiness from the Airplane movies and has settled into a nice, handsome middle age.But a glimpse of skin here and Gere looking exasperated there does not a pleasant time make. There's no point to Dr. T., no center, and unless you enjoy watching Gere fall for and be manipulated by Hunt (not a bad thing if she were on the up-and-up), I can't think of anything less enjoyable than watching Altman's disastrous "women's movie." Except for putting your feet in those stirrups (I have been told).