Review of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) by Uttiyo S — 30 Jun 2013

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest- 10/10.

Now I've seen some really dangerous on-screen battles in movies, but the one in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest between Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher is absolutely amazing, iconic, lethal and you keep on wondering what is going to happen to happen next, and both of them do their acting in such a subtle but affective way that the audience is everwanting to know whats gonna happen next. Cuckoo's nest is thought-provoking, absorbing, disturbing and heart-breaking at the same and consists of scenes which are so good and wonderful that you are kept awed throughout the movie, regardless of it being mostly inside 1 prison. Cuckoo's Nest boasts of some amazing performences from a formidable cast(specially Nicholson and Fletcher) of which each and every one has done a memorable job, a really unique and realistic script which is basically of a good vs evil nature of how rebellion can either go right or wrong and some perfect presentation by Milos Forman who has handled his cast and staff perfectly and implemented a difficult story perfectly to make what may be one of the all time great dramatic movies which has a hint of black comedy at times, and which keeps you awed throughout the movie because of its overall brilliance.

The Story which is based upon the novel written by Ken Kesey is about an eccentric, careless rebellion R.P McMurphy( Jack Nicholson) who is admitted in a mental institution run by a dictatorial Nurse Ratchet(Louise Fletcher) due to some mental sickness reported by his office. Upon admitttance to it, he finds out the real state of the insitution where everyone in it is extremely eccentric in their own different ways and tries to make them stand up to their feet and not withstand the dictatorial rule of Ratchet. In Doing so he makes a lot of friends namely in an eccentric guy named Martini( Danny DeVito) who still acts likes a kid, Cheswick( Sydney Lassick) who has a habit of getting hyperexcited in many situations, Billy( Brad Dourif) who is stuttering young man with a mental sickness and Chief( Will Sampson) who is a deaf and dumb red-indian who later turns out to be his partner in crime. After doing his best in trying to make themselves stand up for each other, he tries to break out of jail one day with Chief and things go from good to bad in no time. The Ending of the movie is extremely anti-climax( one of the rarest anti-climax's i've ever seen) and really hits you like a pipebomb.

Cuckoo's nest probably has one of the best ensemble cast i've ever seen in movies, and although the lead actor may be Nicholson and the actress may be Fletcher, the others have done their side-roles to a superb extent as well and this each and every lunatic in this movie will be memorable for their performence in Cuckoo's nest. Well, Nicholson again shows us why he is considered as one of the best actors of all time by giving what may be his best performence ever and one of the greatest portrayels of a fictional character in the history of movies. He Portrays R.P McMurphy who is careless, eccentric and rebellious and right from entering the institution he makes a mark,he's there in every scene and has done every scene perfectly, starting from Self-Radio to The final scene, in every one his dialogues are delivered perfectly and his laugh and face expression are one of the most eccentric and unique ever. He Definitely deserves his Oscar for this one, he's portrayed a difficult character flawlessly and he became the character to make him look easy to portray. Louise Fisher is the only female in this movie with a subsequent ''lead role'' in Nurse Mildred Ratchet, who is the head nurse of the mental institution and is almost like a dictator towards the mental patients. She plays the villain here and through some single expressions and a soft evil voice she does it so brilliantly that you want her to die or get killed by McMurphy. Her and Nicholson's on-screen battle is one of the most iconic battles between good and evil and with these two facing off with each other and the supporting cast doing their absolute best, you almost wonder whom to follow. The rest of the supporting cast which mainly consist of mental patients have done their jobs perfectly, although I thought Danny DeVito portraying the eccentric,kid-like Martini did a great job and the role suited him, and same goes with Sydney Lassick for portraying the hyper-excited and mentally unstable Cheswick did their jobs especially well to make a name for themselves in the movie business. All in all, each and everyone in the cast did their roles to the maximum and you cant choose out a bad one, in the scene's its confusing on whom to concentrate on.

Now One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest may be entertaining and even funny at times, but in no way is the story either entertaining nor funny, it is one of the most difficult, harshly realstic, thought-provoking story to succesfully portray in a movie, and considering the scene's, one has to remain in awe of how hard Milos Forman had to work in order to make a movie such of the brilliance of One Flew over the Cuckoo's nest. He has taken an extremely difficult story and presented it with such ease that you just wonder how he did it. He chose his cast which was extremely vital to the movie absolutely perfectly, and made each and everyone of them act according to what his expectations were. Some of the Scene's are so loud and disturbing at times, but at the same time keeps you awestruck because of its overall brilliance and involves so many actors giving it their all at one go, Forman had to manage each and everyone to do their own jobs perfectly in order for the sequences to be absolutely perfect. And his presentation of the subtle yet dangerous on-screen battle of McMurphy and Ratchet is one of the best on-screen battles presented in a movie and on top of that an unexpected anti-climax which rattles the audience and this battle is the key for this movie becoming so amazing is done perfectly. On Top of the brilliant acting and great dialogues, the background music and cinematography is spot on as well and Forman made sure he chose the absolute best for all the deparments for this movie which was the stepping stone of his glorious career. Forman has made one of the most disturbing, absorbing, harshly realistic dramatic movies of all time in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's nest and he himself also deserved his Oscar for making one of the real gems of all time which keeps you awestruck at every moment.

The Screenplay which is written by Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman is very well derived from the story and some of the dialogues are splendid and all these brilliant dialogues which are delivered together perfectly by the actors keep you awestruck throughout the movie, and its especially good because the dialogues are harshly realistic and keeps you wondering about them even after you've finished watching the movie, about how realistic the story really was, the screenplay really backed up the super story brilliantly and the screenwriters also have adapted the story superbly from the novel, and Cuckoo's nest probably deserves the first 5 mainstream Oscar's it won.

The Cinematography is superb mainly because most of the scene's are inside 1 institution only and the scene's which are outside are so beautiful that you cant resist the beauty of the nature area's which are shown in the movie. The Sequences which are shown inside the institution are also capture superbly through some great camera-work and lighting and cinematographer Haskell Wexler also deserves the appreciation of the audience due to his great contribution in making this movie perfect. Even The Art Direction is quite great, because the institution shown is quite unique from other institutions or prisons shown in other movies and the art direction team also deserves their share of appreciation.

The Background Music is almost like magical at parts in this movie and some of the red-indian music which are in the movie are so beautifully synchronised with the sequences that you are bound to get awed by the amazing presentation of the movie and the background music specially in the last parts is particularly emotional and the music along with the ending scene's are bound to make you emotional. The Classical music which was played in the movie was quite beautiful too although it annoyed the characters in the movie. The Music director deserves his credit as well for giving such beautiful music throughout this tense movie.

One Flew Over The Cukoo's nest remains as the best thought-provoking, iconic and harshly realistic drama movie i've seen and Cuckoo's nest is in a league of its own, because a movie like it wont ever be made again. Cuckoo's nest also boasts of an on-screen battle which is extremely subtle and lethal at the same time and due to the flawless acting by Nicholson and super villlain role of Fletcher, Cuckoo's nest proves that it deserves all the accolades it got and director Milos Forman has made one of the real gems of all times which is bound to stay in the history books forever in the world of movies.