Randle MacMurphy, an unrepentant criminal hoodlum, decides to serve out his remaining sentence in a mental hospital as he thinks it will be a breeze compared to prison and hard labour. He didn't bargain for the tyranny on the ward of Nurse Ratched who has a well established, demeaning routine for the men who fear her greatly. Randle is not insane when he enters the asylum but he grows angrier and angrier on the ward and frequently locks horns with Nurse Ratched about her authoritarian ways. MacMurphy acts as an agitator among the men who begin to defy Nurse Ratched. She coolly cracks down on their new found liberties and MacMurphy is told he is being detained indefinitely. Ever the rebel, the authorities try to control him with shock therapy. Meanwhile, Nurse Ratched is biding her time... And he falls into her trap, strangling her in a fit of rage. He is swiftly lobotomised and that is the end of Randle MacMurphy. Both a reprobate and a hero, Randle MacMurphy's story is rather tragic. It is hard not to like him as he challenges the dreadful Nurse Ratched and her horrible regime on the ward. The patients have been stripped of all of their rights - fun and personal liberty are strictly verboten. The film really showcases just how dreadful mental hospitals are and it perfectly exemplifies through MacMurphy the old adage about psychiatric wards "If you aren't mad when you go in, you will be mad by the time you get out". MacMurphy's subversive, independent nature was his downfall.
My first film watched was Carrie aged 2 on my dad's knee. Educated at The University of St Andrews and Trinity College Dublin. Fan of Arthouse, Exploitation, Horror, Euro Trash, Giallo, New French Extremism. Weaned at the bosom of a Russ Meyer starlet. The bleaker, artier or sleazier the better!
