Deserves all its accolades in full

Rating: 8/10 (31 October 2012)

The first thing to say about this movie, perhaps, is "beware of the other reviews!" (lol) Actually, as is common with reviews on this website, many of the otherwise well-written reviews of this movie found here contain factual errors that are not necessarily insignificant to understanding both the plot and theme. (In that regard, this comment pertains only to the movie, not the book.)
That said, this is yet another film like COOL HAND Luke or MISTER ROBERTS that deals with the theme of a small group of men under the thumb of a petty but truly malevolent tyrant, in this case the now-notorious Nurse Ratched. Jack Nicholson is the agent provocateur classic to this genre who challenges not only the authority but the actual control the tyrant has been able to exercise up to the point of his entry into the setting, and of course that cannot be tolerated. Given that in this vehicle this kind of action is taking place in a mental hospital rather than a prison or naval vessel, it also raises the question as to what ought to be considered sanity for confinement purposes, at least in a very abstract or philosophical sense. For this is one of those movies that is not at all realistic, really, but a morality play. Thus, in spite of the look of the thing and the inclusion of electroshock "therapy" and the lobotomy, real mental illness is not realistically depicted, nor is there any reason to. That's really not the point.
Probably the best reason to see this, then, is to see Jack Nicholson as one of the ultimate movie wise-guy personas of all time. One can't help but wonder what what James Cagney or even Humphrey Bogart would have had to say about this performance; I don't feel that either of those greats (or so many more, even including Paul Newman or Sean Connery) ever did anything so compelling. As the anti-authoritarian foil to the villain's oppression, he is about beyond compare. Add to that Louise Fletcher's cold-blooded, pathologically manipulative control freak (the one who really needs to be institutionalized to stop her from hurting people) and a top-notch supporting cast who later became quite famous in other vehicles including Danny DeVito (with HAIR!), Christopher Lloyd, and Scatman Crothers and this picture walks off with the Triple Crown of the Academy Awards. Worth every bit of the praise its generally given, it is must-see cinema for the true movie connoisseur.