You Don't Know Jack (2010) Red Box Review

Starring: Al Pacino, Brenda Vaccaro, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon

Director: Barry Levinson

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1132623/

Which would you choose? A quick painless death or slowly withering away on a cold hospital bed. The courts said we didn't have the right to choose. If we were allowed to die, they simply unhooked the machines and let us go. Unable to move, barely having any motor function. Lying there, slowly starving, til your body finally gives out. One man, sought to change that. This is the story. Dr. Jack Kevorkian created a "suicide assist" machine. Where the patient was able to bring about their own death. A doctor couldn't do it, that would be illegal. So he would set up the machine and let the patient do it themselves.

I remember when this was going on in the 90's. The media painted a grisly picture. "Dr. Death" they called him. Like a sadistic serial killer from a slasher flick. Arresting him whenever he tried to help out a patient. All he was doing was trying to protect our civil rights. Let us choose ourselves if we have the right to die. He never asked for any money. What doctor can say that? This film shows the side of Jack that we never got to see. The humanitarian. The sympathetic doctor who only wanted what was best for the individual. It follows the trials up until he finally got seen in the Supreme Court, no longer charged for assisting suicide, but for murder.

Beautifully shot and brilliantly directed. Al Pacino is in top form. I didn't even recognize him. He really became Kevorkian. Not your typical Friday night flick. It's heavy subject matter, but still it is something worth seeing.

Verdict: * * * *

- Xtoph