Very profound, strong ending and quite funny... (SPOILERS)

Rating: Null/10 (27 November 2003)

I can totally understand why Ken Kesley was so angry for changing the movie from Chief Brodman's perspective to McMurphy's. To me it was really the Chief who learned to change but the audience related more to McMurphy, as he was such a dynamic character.
To me this movie is extremely profound, in that the men in the mental institute constituted a reflection of society which was being contolled by the beliefs fed by them by Nurse Rachett. She was trying to help them with her therapy but it only made things worse as they became more weak and needy as a result. The truth was that there was nothing at all wrong with any of them, some of them just didn't have the courage to live in the harsh reality called the world and some were just convinced that they couldn't do anything and so did't. McMurphy cures them by helping them to be free, by having fun and enjoying the wonders of life. In the end they become so much more better off from his treatment than from hers.
I guess in real life we do the same don't we?. We listen to pop psychologist and gurus talk, while letting counselors and suppossed experts make all of our decisions for us. We then become dependent on their advice and lose confidence in our abilities. Not to say that all of them don't have anything useful to offer but when you start to rely on them and instead stop relying on yourself then you're in trouble.
There were some sucky things about this movie that I noticed.
SPOILERS! SPOILERS!
I have very little sympathy for McMurphy for not escaping when he had the chance. The window of opportunity was wide open and yet he overslept but then again this is part of his character.
I did have a lot of sympathy however, when McMurphy got the lobtomy at the very end. It turns out that society won and that his reward for making life in the institute better for others, was to be degraded into being less than human when compared to the other patients.
Finally, you realize that the it's Chief's story and that he learned from McMurphy's example. He then breaks loose from the chains of inferority and powerlessness and escapes. That was beautiful.

All in all.
A+