In the now utopian-looking post-Cold War world, when people in the West could not fathom today's geopolitical challenges, racial strife and re-emergence of class warfare, the main source of division in those societies were so-called "social issues". One of those issues was euthanasia or the right to die, which separated proponents and opponents more sharply than any other. In 1990s America the main proponent, and the iconic face of the debate, was the protagonist of You Don't Know Jack, a 2010 biopic directed by Barry Levinson and originally aired on HBO.
The protagonist, played by Al Pacino, is Dr. Jack Kevorkian, also known by the media moniker "Dr. Death", a physician of Armenian descent working in Oakland County, Michigan. Motivated partly by his atheist beliefs, and mainly by his professional experiences with patients who met the end of their lives in needless agony, he comes to an idea to develop techniques that would allow terminally or incurably ill people to meet their ends in a painless and dignified way. Helped by sister Margo Janus (Brenda Vaccaro), sympathetic medical technician Neal Nicol (John Goodman), and Janet Good (Susan Sarandon), a right-to-die advocate, he begins his campaign in 1990 by helping 54-year-old Janet Atkins (played by Sandra Seacat), an Alzheimer's patient, end her life.
In the next years, Dr. Kevorkian would, by his own admission, end the lives of 130 patients. He does it openly, videotaping all procedures and advocating his methods as more humane and dignifying ways to end patient lives. This brings a lot of publicity, but also controversy, with Kevorkian being heavily criticised by euthanasia opponents and from religious circles. There are also attempts to have him tried and convicted for murder, but Dr. Kevorkian, with the help of his attorney Geoffrey Fieger (Danny Huston), beats the charges, mainly because he never pressed the button, leaving the ultimate decision to use his contraptions to the patients.
Dr. Kevorkian in 1998 makes the fatal mistake during a television interview with Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes, when he plays the videorecording of his administering lethal drugs to Thomas Youk, a patient so weak from ALS that he could not administer them himself. This time he is tried for murder in a trial where he sabotages his own case by firing his attorney and representing himself; he is found guilty and sentenced to 10–25 years in prison, being paroled in 2007.
The script by Adam Mazer was mainly based on Between the Dying and the Dead, a 2006 book by Kevorkian's associate Neal Nicol and Harry Wylie. The script, together with director Barry Levinson, tries very hard to take a nuanced approach to this divisive issue, although, this being an HBO production, it was all but inevitable that the film would be bent more towards a left-wing, "progressive" and "enlightened" direction, and in this case that direction is pro-euthanasia.
However, much to their credit, the authors avoid crude propaganda and try to paint Kevorkian as a more complex figure; his passionate pro-euthanasia stance and pioneering work in that area being just one of the aspects of his life. He is shown to be a rather eccentric, fame-seeking person whose advocacy, while efficient in familiarising the public with this until then ignored topic, sometimes turned counterproductive, most notably during his publicity-seeking antics that ultimately landed him in jail.
Al Pacino, who would win an Emmy and a Golden Globe for the title role, is the film's biggest asset, but also its biggest weakness. Pacino, an actor with enormous talent, but who rarely missed an opportunity to ham it up after his 1992 Scent of a Woman Oscar win, does it again here, putting in a performance so over the top that the audience often has to be reminded not to watch an overindulgent actor instead of a recreation of a real person and real event.
The rest of the cast is solid, whilst Levinson's direction is capable, resulting in a solid but routine biopic that will not shed much light on an already well-known figure, nor would it tilt the balance in the years-long debate its protagonist embodied three decades ago.
You Don't Know Jack ultimately serves as a competent, if unremarkable, portrait of a man who forced America to confront uncomfortable questions about death, dignity and autonomy. The film's greatest failing is not its ideological leanings, but rather its inability to transcend the limitations of the standard biographical drama format. Levinson and Mazer had an opportunity to craft something genuinely provocative—a film that might have challenged viewers regardless of their stance on euthanasia. Instead, they delivered a product that preaches largely to the converted whilst offering little new insight into Kevorkian's psychology or the broader ethical quandaries he embodied. Pacino's theatrical portrayal, though undeniably entertaining, further distances the viewer from the genuine human drama at the story's core. One leaves the film with the sense that the real Jack Kevorkian deserved a more restrained, thoughtful examination than this well-intentioned but ultimately superficial production provides.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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