Responsible for the creation of over 40 movies throughout the 1960s to early 2000s, director Milos Forman attempted to bring to life the best-selling novel, ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’, written by Ken Casey. With a prominent director at the helm of the movie, and backed by an all-star cast composed of Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, and Danny Devito, this movie unsurprisingly won many awards. If I was writing this movie review in 1975, I would say this is a great movie and everyone should go see it right not. It’s not 1975. Overall, I don't recommend watching this movie.
After rejecting the movie script produced by the author of the book, Milos Forman attempted a movie without the narration by Chief Bromden (Will Sampson), creating a very different atmosphere compared to the book. Even though he plays a much larger role in the novel, Chief is pushed from the starlight and Randle McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) becomes the films dominant lead actor. Despite this change in focus of the film, the movie begins with traditional Indian music as Mr. McMurphy is transferred to the institution. From the beginning, the use of music is awkward and does not fit the scene compared to more modern movies out there today with much more emphasis on soundtrack. In fact, this movie has an 18-minute soundtrack, mostly composed of an awkwardly placed Indian flute. The soundtrack of an average modern film lasts about 80 minutes. This lack of music hurts the film tremendously by neglecting scenes that could have been better with background music and bring emphasis to important parts of the film.
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After reading the novel written by Ken Casey, many would be disappointed in the movie’s ability to capture the godly like qualities of McMurphy which make him such a hero to the mental patients. The novel built a legend around McMurphy that seemed to motivate the patients to do anything. The film on the other hand definitely did motivate the inmates, but lacked the awe-inspiring messages that McMurphy brought them in the book. Ken Casey molds McMurphy into a superhero through his descriptions of his actions and emotions. I did not get the same feelings watching the movies compared to what it felt like when reading the books.
The overall reason why this movie is not worth your time is that it is just a watered down, not true to itself, version of the book. Where the book focused on inmates being raped by guards and tormented by the evil Nurse Ratched (Elise Fletcher), the movie made everyone seem friendlier and nicer to each other. The feeling of evil control over the inmates by Nurse Ratched made the battle between Ratched and McMurphy a much more intense story and ending. Hollywood’s attempt to re-create this emotional connection that the book held fell short, leaving me unimpressed and slightly bored.
All in all, the acting was very well done and the set was extremely realistic, but this movie just seems outdated and kind of bland to really catch my eye. If you have the choice, I’d pick something better and more enjoyable but if you are stuck in an English class somewhere forced to watch it, pay attention. There’s some funny, curse word filled scenes in store for you.
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