Film Review : ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST * * * *

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest(1975)
CAST Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Brad Dourif, William Redfield, Will Sampson, Scatman Crothers, Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito
DIRECTOR Milos Foreman

"What is this crap? I mean, even when I'm in the cooler, I'm in the cooler they run it or they have a riot! Whats the matter with you people, be good Americans".

This is the plea R.P. McMurphy makes to the residents of a Washington mental institution, attempting to watch the world series. Jack Nicholson is Randle Patrick McMurphy in Milos Foreman's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. McMurphy is a convict who plays nuts while in prison in order to get sent to an institution for evaluation. he primarily wants to get out of his work detail and take it easy in the funny farm until his sentence is finished. Instead, we get a gripping story that beginning to end keeps us more than interested in the lives of these people. Everyone has issues, yes, but that doesnt make them clinically crazy. Just in need of some help to point them in the right direction.

Louise Fletcher plays Nurse Mildred Ratched, an evil controlling nurse who uses overbearing tactics to keep control of her patients. McMurphy notices this right away and challenges her time after time. Nurse Ratched is not use to the resistance and grows suppressingly more angry with McMurphy. Scene after scene is like a mini movie in itself. There is a beginning a middle and end. There is a character with an action, facing a dilemna, finding a solution or resolution to this dilemna. This happens through out the film and it remains to keep its continuity.

What McMurphy originally planned to do here was just count the days until he would be freed. What happens though is he gradually gets involved with patients lives, and finding himself trying to come to some resolution for their problems. Keeping himself occupied by trying to liberate patients he restricts his own growth and it is ultimately his demise.

Nicholson is brilliant as McMurphy, a convict who defies the rules in order to test the boundaries of authority. Fletcher is disturbing as Ratched, who wont stop at anything to make things go her way. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest won the four major categories in the 1975 oscars. Deservedly so as well. This is a timeless classic that will help motivate people to stand up for themselves and realize that no one controls anothers destiny. That is in our own hands.

This is my choice as the greatest film of all time.