Superb drama with superb acting.

Rating: 10/10 (19 June 2016)

In 1963 Oregon, Randle Patrick "Mac" McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), a recidivist anti- authoritarian criminal serving a short sentence on a prison farm for the statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl, is transferred to a mental institution for evaluation. Although he does not show any overt signs of mental illness, he hopes to avoid hard labor and serve the rest of his sentence in a more relaxed hospital environment.
McMurphy's ward is run by steely, unyielding Nurse Mildred Ratched (Louise Fletcher), a strict authoritarian woman who passive-aggressively employs subtle humiliation, unpleasant medical treatments and a mind-numbing daily routine to suppress the patients and keep them submissive. McMurphy finds that they are actually more fearful of Nurse Ratched and her methods than they are focused on their main goal of eventually becoming functional in the outside world. In order to help them achieve this (as he believes), McMurphy establishes himself immediately as the leader of his fellow patients.