One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest -- 1975 -- R

This one won the big five Oscars in '75, so I had to check it out, and like most Oscar winners, this one ended up as a mixed bag of both incredible filmmaking and bizarreness.

It involves Jack Nicholson in an cast of stars before they were stars like Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd. He is RP McMurray, a man who was transferred from the prison as a troublemaker, and they want to know if he is mentally unstable. He mixes up the patients in this mental institution in a series of antics that do not necessarily endear him to the hospital staff.

As could be expected, 90% of the film is wonderful, and the characters are very well drawn out. Some are likeable; some aren't, but they're all well-drawn and consistent. The plot is more like a series of tableaus, so there aren't any holes to speak of, since there aren't anywhere for holes to be placed. It's primarily a character sketch for McMurray and his time at this institution. It's funny in some parts and troubling in others, but it works very well.

But what is with endings in the 70's? It's like we get away from the code requiring that "Hollywood ending" and everyone forgets that occasionally, we want things to work out for the characters. The Academy seems to like it, but I felt like the ending to this one was just kind of tagged on there. We approach a resolution and everything in the film seemed to be building to it, and then (kind of like a kick in the pants), nothing happens and we move on to something else. Where we end is with a move that not only comes out of no where, but wasn't even remotely setup as a possibility. I actually felt a little cheated.

So if we drop that last 10 minutes or so, it's awesome. Loved it. The tag ending could go as far as I'm concerned. But it is an awesome film for the characters drawn.