Oh Nicholson

Rating: 9/10 (7 December 2014)

Jack Nicholson's mere presence in this picture was enough to bring this production to the screen, after the novel written by Ken Kesey was dubbed as 'unfilmable'; once Nicholson had his name on the contract, Hollywood took over. Nicholson's performance granted him an Oscar with acknowledgements that he was born to play the role of a misfit gone crazy when admitted into an insane asylum. The picture was moving yet simple and funny and was labelled as a dramatic masterpiece as it highlighted society's distorted outlook on the 'mentally unstable' and eventually won the 'top five' Oscars and was the second film in history to do so. This could never have been achieved if Nicholson's reputation had not got the ball rolling on this project in the first place. This picture was rightly the definition of the character that Nicholson should play and made him the top choice to play Jack Torrance in The Shining and the Joker in the 1989 interpretation of Batman.