One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest [Movie-1975]

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest starts in a typical mental institution where sad, monotonous music plays, people are dressed in white, waiting for medicine. Enter our protagonist, and the star of the film, Randle Patrick "Mac" McMurphy [Jack Nicholson]. He does not seem to be suffering from any mental disorder. Rather, he is pretending to be, just to escape labour and serve his time in a relaxed environment that of a mental institution rather than the jail.
He comes up against the 'head' of the psych ward, 'Nurse Ratched' who has, all the patients on a leash.
They are afraid of her and follow her evey order.
Now McMurphy is not mentally ill, thus he has a free independent mind, without any side effects of any medication. He decides that Miss Ratched be taught a lesson. He quickly establishes himself as the leader of the ward and repeatedly challenges the rules and policies of the nurses.
Also steals a bus and takes all the patients fishing. Doctors start getting worried and tighten the strings on all patients. During a session, a patient named Cheswick gets very angry and he, McMurphy and an assumed deaf/dumb person, named 'Chief' fight with the staff and as a result are taken towards electro-shock therapy.
This is a breaking point in the movie as Chief reveals that he is neither deaf nor dumb and befriends McMurphy in the process. The realisation by McMurphy that he is staying in this cell for an entirety of his life makes him agitated and he makes a plan for his great escapade. He calls up his friends and bribes the warden to let them in. He and the chief make a plan to escape after having this small party. But the mix of medicines and the alcohol takes a toll on everyone and passes out. In the morning, Miss Ratched is horrified at the scene and orders a headcount at which they find a patient named Billy missing. Billy is later found out in a room with one of the girls McMurphy had called up. Miss Ratched is enraged and tells Billy that this will be reported to his mom. This makes Billy panic and he eventually kills himself. This provokes McMurphy and he tries to choke Miss Ratched until he is knocked down by the orderlies. He is later lobotmised and brought back to the ward. The Chief is heartbroken to see his friend is such a rotten condition and he can't allow him to live like this. The movie ends with Chief smothering McMurphy to death by a pillow and then escaping himself by uprooting a bathroom console and breaking the window by throwing it.

A sad end to a lovely story 'twas.

Jack Nicholson, as always, acted like a boss. He has one of the most varied expressions in Hollywood and this movie gave him a chance to showcase quite a lot of them. I like how the film gave focus to many characters to and just not the protagonist. Nurse Ratched and Chief, along with other patients like Billy, Cheswick, Dale, Martini, Taber and Sefelt have been introduced and given a good deserving screen time. The movie is shot beautifully with every scene having it's own importance.
A good quirky comedy mixed with the tragedy potrayed in the end makes a the movie brilliant. Brilliant adaption from a book. I don't think any one else could have done more justice to the book.
Worth a watch.

My Rating - 8.6/10