One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
August 2008 Reviewed by: Rad Bennett Format: Blu-ray	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

One of the special features that video viewers seem to enjoy most is a collection of deleted scenes. These usually turn out to be throwaway shots, excised for a very good reason. But fans keep watching and waiting in hopes of finding something rare and wonderful. The deleted scenes on this set will vindicate their quest. They are all first-rate and give greater insight into the wacky and wonderful characters of this Academy Award-winning film, the first since It Happened One Night to win all five top awards: Best Film, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Screenplay.

Looking at it 33 years later, the movie still seems to deserve all of the accolades it garnered. Based on a novel by Ken Kesey, the movie presented characters that are so vividly depicted that they stay with one long after the closing credits.

The movie catapulted Jack Nicholson from star to superstar. Nicholson plays Randle P. McMurphy, a wise-cracking free spirit who is sent to an insane asylum to see if he really is crazy. McMurphy is a likable rabble rouser. He senses potential in each patient at the institution and helps them all realize their full potential as human beings. He helps them escape, commandeers a state bus, and takes them on a fishing trip. He tries to get enough votes so the patients can watch the World Series, and he throws a drunken after-hours party for them.

The establishment, embodied in the person of Nurse Ratched (Louis Fletcher), does not take kindly to McMurphy’s efforts. Steely and controlled, Ratched runs a tight, by-the-book ship that has no room for new ideas, worthy or not. She and McMurphy butt heads on many occasions. She’s made into a strange new villain for sticking to the rules, the same way he is made into one of the more famous anti-heroes in the history of drama for breaking them. The implication is that McMurphy might not be crazy, but he is insane just for trying to buck the system.

Like Bonnie and Clyde, the movie is presented in Warner’s "book" series, with its handsome hard-cover packaging that along with the disc contains 38 pages of great-looking color photos, biographies, and essays. The transfers are good but not perfect. The video transfer is generally devoid of any large mistakes, such as tears or rips in the print, and on long shots, such as those involved in the fishing expedition, the extra detail that Blu-ray provides pays off in a feeling of depth not present in the most recent standard-definition release. Close-ups, however, are often on the coarse side and don’t seem to have much more detail than an upconverted DVD. In sum, the picture does nothing to detract from the drama and at times does add to it by providing copious detail.

The front cover proclaims "Hi-Def Sound," but what we get is Dolby Digital with 90 percent of the sound up front. That’s no problem, really, as the film is so dialogue driven, but one wonders about Warner’s special proclamation of what is really quite normal.

In addition to the deleted scenes, there’s a production featurette and a better-than-average commentary with director Milos Forman and producers Saul Zaentz and Michael Douglas. The extras are rounded out with a theatrical trailer.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a true classic, and every serious Blu-ray collector should have this generally excellent copy in his or her collection. This is one to buy, not rent.

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