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List Price: $26.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 5926
Released: September 24, 2002 |
| Our Price: $8.89 |
| Used Price: $4.99 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
A rebellious patient battles Nurse Ratched (Fletcher) and the mental institution he has been sent to.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 24-SEP-2002
Media Type: DVD
Description of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Two-Disc Special Edition):
One of the key movies of the 1970s, when exciting, groundbreaking, personal films were still being made in Hollywood, Milos Forman's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest emphasized the humanistic story at the heart of Ken Kesey's more hallucinogenic novel. Jack Nicholson was born to play the part of Randle Patrick McMurphy, the rebellious inmate of a psychiatric hospital who fights back against the authorities' cold attitudes of institutional superiority, as personified by Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). It's the classic antiestablishment tale of one man asserting his individuality in the face of a repressive, conformist system--and it works on every level. Forman populates his film with memorably eccentric faces, and gets such freshly detailed and spontaneous work from his ensemble that the picture sometimes feels like a documentary. Unlike a lot of films pitched at the "youth culture" of the 1970s, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest really hasn't dated a bit, because the qualities of human nature that Forman captures--playfulness, courage, inspiration, pride, stubbornness--are universal and timeless. The film swept the Academy Awards for 1976, winning in all the major categories (picture, director, actor, actress, screenplay) for the first time since Frank Capra's It Happened One Night in 1931. --Jim Emerson
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Two-Disc Special Edition) Reviews:
more than deserving of oscars won 
2008-06-29 - The first time I saw this movie was on the big screen in '75. At the time I wasn't very familiar with Jack Nicholson but after watching this I realized he was a cut above the rest of the actors in his field. Everyone I knew had gone to see this film and not one person had disliked it. Not sure if any film is perfect but if this one isn't, it's as close as it gets.
spoilers alert 
2008-06-23 - An underdeveloped story in almost every aspect, it establishes early on Jack Nicholson's character is going to shake up the humdrum lives of the mental inmates and staff, does a competent job of fleshing out this idea in a way that probably seemed more original back in 1975 (this may be sacrilege but I'd recommend watching 1990's Crazy People for a more engaging version of the same thing), and seems to not know where to go from there. The supporting characters barely have identities at all. The attempts to evoke sympathy for the inmates and contempt for the staff only appear in the second half of the film and seem to contradict the amicable relationship depicted previously. Then Jack gets into a fight (i can't even remember why), gets electroshocked (we aren't even shown the nurse giving the order, which would have gone a long way towards validating her supposed villain status), and nothing that happens from then on has anything to do with anything that happened previously. The film closes with the contextless unforeshadowed dramatic inserts of a tragic suicide and a noble euthanizing which made me think SOMEbody's been reading Of Mice And Men, and then a symbolic escape which is the most meaningless thing in the entire film.
splendid
2008-06-15 - reead the bok about 20 years ago, never saw the movie. my coworker ar fighting me for the dvd. i'm using it for my class-project about people with psycological illnesses. and it is good. thx.
Some of the BEST Acting..EVER!!
2008-06-08 - I've seen OFOTCN a number of times over the years and it never fails to entertain, enlighten and work on a thinking mans conscious like few other films can. Many scenes are sad,tragic and disturbing and the battles waged by Nicholson's McMurphy role are often Quixotic and frustrating. In the end, I came out of this film with feelings of strength and power, as well as an understanding of authority and free will that I challenge and examine to this day.
McMurphy(Nicholson) is hardly a character anyone would like personally, forgiving maybe a quick conversation at a bar or a jobsite. McMurphy is jovial and quick with good natured BS, but is a petty crook, drinker, gambler and habitual loser. Sent from a prison work camp to a sanitarium for a brief evaluation, McMurphy locks heads witht the best player of the film, Louise Fletcher's Nurse Ratched. Methodical, calibrated and passive-aggressive, Nurse Ratched has made her the patients in her small therapy group obedient and broken their wills with a authoritarianism that is subtle and difficult to recognize. As the patients take their daily medication and ponder the hopelessness of their situations, Nurse Ratched coldly humilates her patients with her carefully regulated verbal tone and personality-free interactions.
The therapy group are some of the saddest men you'll see on film- their existense pointless and their therapy for the most part unproductive. McMurphy's arrival in the psych ward to these men is like a breath of Spring air. McMurphy challenges first the protocol of the unofficial leaders of the patients, the "just-a-job-man" orderlies that are quick to use unecessary force, and eventually the whole thought process and the psychological lack of liberty and thought pushed by Ratcheds policies.
Many saw this film in the 70's as a typical "us against the Man" screed, there's much more here. There are undertones that can appeal to many real life scenarios- the rituals of life we never question, our willingness to be lead instead of lead ourselves in times of question. Put your thinking cap on and see this one!
Moving!
2008-06-08 - Jack Nicholson (Randle McMurphy) is the lead in this movie, though hardly the only great performer. Louise Fletcher (Nurse Ratched) and Will Sampson (Chief Bromden) also provide outstanding performances.
McMurphy is sent to the mental institution for supposedly deranged behavior, initially is repelled by his fellow inmates, but then rallies to their defense as an anti-establishment reaction to Nurse Ratched's intimidation of them. Even electroshock therapy doesn't stop McMurphy's antics.
However, after another patient kills himself worrying about Nurse Ratched telling his mother about his behavior, McMurphy tries to kill Ratched, and undergoes a lobotomy in retaliation.
The movie ends as Chief suffocates McMurphy so he can "escape" with him and throw off Nurse Ratched's control.
