Good film yes. Great film no.

Rating: 6/10 (2 December 2001)

I chose to see this partly on the strength of it being in the IMDB Top 10 & I have to say I was disappointed.
Spoilers
The first hour was excellent, but it seemed everything that could've occurred or been said had, by this point and the last hour & quarter did drag unnecessarily. You done well if you stayed awake throughout the last hour.
I believe the viewer is supposed to hate Nurse Radchett. I didn't. I found her ok, and certainly not malicious like some commenters have done. She is only doing her job after all, in an environment where some of the patients are highly dangerous.
I've not read the book, but people who have tell me it is one of the worst adaptations ever. I'll have to abstain from that.
On the plus side, the acting is just brilliant. Nicholson, DeVito, Lloyd, infact the whole cast are worthy of a best actor award. You genuinely do believe every one of them are mental patients, and play each role perfectly. I struggle to think of a film with a better display of acting in it.
Some of the scenes too, are moving, and you do feel for them but I certainly don't find the film depressing. Sadly though, I am staggered people have claimed this to be funny. Some scenes may raise a smile at most, but laugh? No.
The ending was also disappointing, infact I'm not really sure what exactly it signified. I can't help thinking the book would've explained it easier.
But the biggest problem I had with this film was that I never knew the whole way through whether Mac wanted to be in the hospital or not? Half the time he seemed to love it in there, but then the other half he was either escaping or wishing he was outside. One or two of the other characters were fairly similar too. Why the hell did he keep coming back in again? Or maybe, that is the whole point of the film. He sees the benefits both inside & out & can't make up his mind.
I've certainly seen enough Americans leaping away from exploding cars, in films, to last me a lifetime, so I'm not suggesting this film needed that, but at the end of the day, it was set 99% in a mental hospital, and there's only so much you can do in that environment. It just lacked that extra bit of excitement, action, tension & suspense to make it a classic.

Anyway. There's plenty worse films in the IMDB top 20 than this, not mentioning any Citizen Kanes or Fight Clubs, sorry, I mean any names, so I would certainly recommend it, but don't expect it to be upto Star Wars or Shawshank Redemption standard.
6.5 /10