The Professor

Director: Wayne Roberts
Year Released: 2018
Rating: 1.5

English professor Richard (Johnny Depp) is informed that he has terminal lung cancer - and that his wife Veronica (Rosemarie DeWitt) is cheating on him - so he starts to lead a debauched life, having sex with a waitress and a (male) student of his (in exchange for pot brownies) and acting like a drunken louse (an alternate version of Hunter S. Thompson?), treating his one (and only?) class with disdain.  At first I thought this was going to be a black comedy (and there are some funny scenes) but he's no John Keating (who may have been misguided but meant well) and his "words of wisdom" as an instructor are shallow - any other regular person who did any of that would have been dismissed, tenure or not.  Then, as it needs to start to 'wrap things up,' it begs for the audience's pity for its anti-hero's illness - the tears flow and it's simply maudlin.  Without Depp this would have been a complete failure - his charisma props it up a tad.