this be the big steam pile of a movie i have see in a long time . awful writing and awful directing and tedious and contrive plot and and poor act effort from an a list cast . in fact and this be one of those movie that hard to turn away from because the awfulness be so compelling this be a movie with serious oscar pretension that come up short in so many way . the plot can be more or less sum up a a melodramatic mix of the bad part of one flew over the cuckoo nest and gorilla in the mist . man love gorilla and gorilla get kill and man go berserk ( this be the big secret he keep mute over in the nuthouse . ) hopkins wade through the dreadful script as well a possible and but gooding a usual ham it up to the max all movie long with his favorite screw up popeye indignant face . a couple of choice scene to demonstrate the cheeziness of this movie first and the scene in which gooding get all the inmate to tear up their playing card while the inspirational music swell and you half expect the cast to start the slow unison clap from those awful highschool sport movie . second and when gooding get out of his car in the end after quit the asylum and he climb out of the car and with more sappy music swelling do the tim robbins shawshank escape jesus pose in the driving rain . unbelievable syrupy tripe . don not waste your time with this stinker and unless you like the unique awfulness of the heaven gate type of train wreck while youre well off jab a salad fork in your eye for 2 hour .