Movie Review - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Take Jack Nicholson, Brad Douriff, Danny Devito & Christopher Lloyd. All playing patients in a mental institution. And they look like they belong there. Jack looks he literally just walked off the set of The Last Detail and nothing like he did in Tommy (both of which predate this film). Devito looks about 12, he's so fresh faced. It's hard to believe this is the same Brad Douriff that will go on to be in Dune and Chris Lloyd seems to get typecast as mad or a crackpot going on to be mental in The Dream Team and a crackpot inventor in Back To The Future.

You get Jack imagining the World Series, Jack escaping, stealing a bus then stealing a boat to take the guys fishing. Jack being given electro shock therapy and faking catatonia. Douriff as Billy is amazing, playing his role so fully. Little wonder he was Oscar nominated for the role that year. The party they throw in the ward with the help of Scatman Caruthers (the voice of Hong Kong Phooey, no less!) is an excellent section of the film. The films main stumbling block is in huge parts so little happens for a long time. Recognisable faces that I couldn't put a name to like The Chief (I know he was in one of the Poltergeist movies) and one of the patients is a hill person from the original version of The Hills Have Eyes. Another one of the men is the subway ghost who trains Patrick Swayze in Ghost.

Jack's planned escape fails due to excessive alcohol, the aftermath of the party when the patients are lined up by the head Nurse as they all behave like naughty school children is so funny. Billy (Douriff) is discovered in bed with one of the women Nicholson had invited into the hospital and is welcomed back to the group like a conquering hero having had sex with her. His stutter had gone completely until Nurse Ratched mentions telling his mother. The blame for Billy's suicide can only placed on one person, Nurse Ratched and Nicholson's almost fatal attack on her is not without merit. We are left to assume that Nicholson has been given possibly a labotomy after attacking and almost killing the Head Nurse as he is totally unresponsive and catatonic.

When The Chief kills Nicholson, it is in silence with no rage or malice. It is done as an act of release, to free Jack from the prison they have placed him into by doing the labotomy on him. The fact that he then carries out Nicholson's original escape plan is like a final act of defiance to show he was truly free all the time. A weird film but quite enjoyable.