You don't know Jack

You Don't Know Jack will be a front-runner for Golden Globes and other prizes. The Emmys went to its lead actor (Al Pacino) and writer (Adam Mazer) for their gripping portrayal of Dr Jack Kevorkian and his 1990s campaign to have doctor-assisted euthanasia legalised in the USA. The impassioned advocate of assisted suicide is an odd heroic character in American medical and legal history, a cantankerous egocentric played to irritating perfection by Pacino.

Directed by Barry Levinson, who'd worked well with Pacino in the past (And Justice For All), the HBO movie also showcases the veteran talents of Brenda Vaccaro (as Jack's sister and accomplice), Susan Sarandon (Hemlock Society activist and friend), John Goodman (long-term medical ally) and Danny Huston (invincible pro-bono defence lawyer and failed Michigan governor-candidate Geoffrey Fieger).

Kevorkian, the American-born son of Armenian refugees, was a retired pathologist in his early 60s when he began his Quixotic activism on behalf of terminally ill patients. For almost a decade, despite harassment and prosecutions by Michigan police and politicians, he conducted at least known 130 suicide procedures. The taped testimonies and appeals of his free-of-charge clients and their loved ones were Kevorkian's strongest defence. So was the fact that each patient manipulated the switch that began their lethal drug or gas procedure.

Kevorkian learned to play the angry fool and work with the media, fasting while in custody and appearing in court in 18th-century costume to face a Common Law charge filed by an obsessed local prosecutor. Although he won legal and PR battles, Kevorkian had his medical licence revoked and his activism banned.

He was determined to challenge the hypocritical set-up which allowed doctors to take comatose patients off life-support systems but forbade euthanasia for coherent patients. Finally, breaking court orders, he deliberately administered the lethal dosage to a helpless patient. Two months later, he gave the tape of that death to 60 Minutes + and was interviewed by Mike Wallace. The state could not ignore the provocation. Using tactical cunning, Michigan prosecutors dropped the charge of assisting suicide, thereby keeping the dead patient's wife and brother from being called as defence witnesses. Possibly hoping to become an imprisoned martyr, Kevorkian foolishly chose to defend himself in his fifth and final trial.

Convicted of second-degree murder, he served more than eight years in prison, and recently completed two years of parole during which he was allowed only to discuss euthanasia, not to practise or promote it. The US Supreme Court had refused to hear his appeal, denying him the platform he'd always sought.

A dramatic often melodramatic story with a charismatic lead figure, the Kevorkian saga is ideal biopic material. The HBO acting ensemble present it excellently, and Levinson's direction finely blended contrasting styles of documentary realism and Greek tragedy. Pacino's performance is commanding, the histrionics controlled, the mannerisms telling, the character flaws displayed dispassionately. Although the screenplay gilded the lily too much by gratuitously showing the social misfit's talents as an instrumentalist, composer, theatre buff and oil painter, they did help to establish the "Doctor of Death" as a very human megalomaniac.