Which one of you nuts has got any guts?

Rating: Null/10 (6 March 2010)

"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", Czech filmmaker Milos Forman's second American film and, as of 2010, one of only three films to win the top 5 Oscars for Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay (the others being "It Happened One Night" and "The Silence of the Lambs"), is a masterpiece of institutionalized melodrama, dark comedy, good vs. evil, man vs. the establishment.
R.P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson in one of the all time great screen performances) is a 38 year-old troublemaker whose latest conviction is for the statutory rape of a 15 year-old girl - he claims she said she was 18. By playing mad, he is transferred from jail to a mental institution, where he believes things will be easier. However, Nurse Mildred Ratched (Louise Fletcher), always cold and impassive to sarcasm, will be a stone in his shoe - especially as McMurphy starts to ignite the other inmates's (Brad Dourif, Will Sampson, Christopher Lloyd, Vincent Schiavelli and Danny DeVito, among others) rebellion against Ratched's oppression.
Some will argue that the film portrays the inmates as caricatures (quite a few of them are there voluntarily) at the mercy of McMurphy's game, which might be true to some extent. Nonetheless, each character, from the fragile Billy (Dourif) to the quiet Chief (Sampson) is absolutely human and believable in their quirkiness, and Nicholson is the rebellious and charismatic anti-hero whose flaws seem to be minor when he becomes such a pal to these miserable, oppressed creatures. We hate Nurse Ratched so much because she represents all of those with enough to power to oppress those who are "smaller" - whether she actually believes what she does is for the better becomes almost irrelevant when we see the damage she is able to cause, and it's that paradox that makes it such a complex character and Louise Fletcher's performance, so effective. The scene where McMurphy finally confronts and almost strangles her is one of the greatest battles in film history; the very ending, where Chief realizes that choking McMurphy to death is the only way of setting him free, then getting away himself, is a moment of synthesis more poignant and disorienting than that from the touching crowd-pleaser "The Shawshank Redemption". McMurphy's rebellion changed a few lives somehow, freed Chief, "killed" Billy and ultimately himself. In the end, McMurphy lost to the establishment, but he still managed to plant his seed somewhere. And yes, if you look at it from the right, or more positive angle, after all these years, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" remains an inspirational story, rather than a cautionary tale. See also: its distant female cousin, James Mangold's underrated "Girl, Interrupted" (1999).