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You can see why these two actors were attracted to the project, as it gives them the roles they’ve been clawing for in other projects. Gibson, who used to direct vulgar epics in ancient languages, gets to play a misunderstood genius; Penn, who often believes the best acting is often the noisiest, is given carte blanche to holler and suffer. But while “The Professor and the Madman” might seem tailor-made for the two, it struggles to offer its own intellectual thrills as its story becomes about propping up the men, not so much the words. 

With the film now credited to director and co-writer P.B. Shemran, this is not even a fun fiasco, mixing some kinetic handheld camerawork and a handsome mid-2000s Oscar-ready period piece sheen with a plot direction that dulls its initial ambitions. Gibson plays Professor James Murray, a self-taught man in numerous languages who joins the long-stewing Oxford English Dictionary project to become its unlikely editor. Defying the smug men around him who look down on his autodidact upbringing (and receiving some support from a peer played by Steve Coogan), Prof. Murray immerses himself in the project with the help of a few assistants, his work space surrounded by slips of paper related to the definition of a word. In one case, the word “art” proves to be their biggest treasure hunt, with everyone trying to track its meaning through different centuries and languages. In one of the movie’s few standout qualities, it does make the idea of a word seem alive—that a word can change throughout the years, and that slang is not an abomination but an evolution. But the workload is too much, and Murray hatches the idea of asking people to submit words with definitions. 

Enter Sean Penn as Madman, who we see in the beginning of the film kill a man in front of the now-widow, but is sentenced to an insane asylum because he killed the wrong man. Penn’s Dr. William Minor has a complicated history, an American who fought in the Civil War and is disturbed in particular by a deserter he had to brand (the man he thought he killed in the beginning). Dr. Minor also has the privilege of intellect, helping save an asylum guard’s life during a ghastly injury, and subsequently earning the right to have papers, books, easels and more in his cell. Meanwhile, Dr. Minor is tormented by the growing guilt of killing that husband and father, even when the widow (Natalie Dormer) inches closer and closer to forgiveness. Annoyingly, her pain is treated as what essentially drives him the most crazy, even though she’s the one with the dead husband and father to her hungry children. 

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