A great film about a fight for freedom

Rating: 9/10 (15 July 2007)

This film is one of Hollywood's great films about an individual's fight to find freedom in an oppressive environment. Randall MacMurphy (Jack Nicholson 1975's Best Actor) is a prison convict judged to possibly be mentally ill and sent for evaluation to a mental hospital in 1960s Oregon. In the hospital he is under the "care" of Nurse Ratchett (Louis Fletcher in an Oscar-winning role) who is cold and unsympathetic to MacMurphy and all the other inmates. She desires order and obedience from the men in her charge. This immediately sets MacMurphy and Ratchett at odds as MacMurphy is not about to be anyone's lackey.
MacMurphy demonstrates his desire for freedom and individuality in many ways . He gets Ratchett to OK a vote to decide if the inmates will be able to alter their strict work schedule and watch the World Series. MacMurphy thinks he has won when all the cognizant inmates vote to watch the game. But Ratchett stifles Randall's bid when she insists on counting the catatonic members of "the group" as "No" votes so MacMurphy is frustrated in his effort.
MacMurphy desires to prove to his minders that he is mentally ill and should not be sent back to prison, so he escapes from the hospital with Cheswick, Taygor, Harding, Martinia and others and absconds with a charter boat so the men can go fishing. This effort surely puts Randal in hot water with hospital officials, but it accomplishes MacMurphy's goal of being kept in the mental hospital. What he does not know and no one told him is as an involuntary committed man, MacMurphy, unlike most of the other men in the hospital, who are voluntarily in the hospital, MacMurphy can be held as long as the hospital officials desire.
MacMurphy and Ratchett are at odds throughout this movie. This film shows the down-side of this country'r mental health system where under-paid and overly officious health workers like Ratchett can use their power to abuse those supposedly in their care. This is shown best in Ratchett's treatment of teenager Billy (Brad Dourff) whom Ratchett controls by threatening to tell his mother of Billy's encounter with a woman MacMurphy brings into the hospital, at night, for a party. Billy is terrified that his mother will find out that he was with a woman, and Ratchett knows this, but nevertheless makes the threat to him.
There are vociferous critics int the United States of the psychiatric profession and of the use of medication to control the freedom of mental patients, the Church of Scientology being the most prominent. I don't agree with the critics' point of view, but this movie, in which several people are hurt in the oppressive mental hospital strengthens the case of those who dislike the mental health system in this country. This movie does a great job of showing MacMurphy's fight against oppression, to remain an individual in a totalitarian system, so I grade this film as earning 9 points out of 10. This film is deservedly among the top 100 ever according to the AFI and I encourage everyone, especially Jack Nicholson fans to watch it if they get the chance.