You Don't Know Jack (2010) on Netflix
Jack Kevorkian, once a pathologist in Oakland County, Michigan, builds a device so the terminally ill can end their own lives. The work provokes polarizing opinion and legal problems.
- Netflix4.2/5
- IMDb7.5/1032,163 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes83%
Trailer
Plot summary
The quadriplegic David Rivlin litigates for the right to be removed from his respirator, and Jack Kevorkian, recalling the death of his mother Satenig over twenty years before, builds a first device he calls the Mercitron out of parts he bought at a flea market. He shows Rivlin how it works: a line into a vein lets the patient start with saline, then sodium thiopental for coma, then potassium chloride to stop the heart. The drugs cost too much and are hard to get, so Kevorkian turns to tanks of carbon monoxide. His sister Margo Janus, his friend and medical technician Neal Nicol, and Janet Good of the Hemlock Society assist him. His first patient is Janet Adkins, a Portland, Oregon, woman in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. He calls himself a death counselor; the patient alone decides.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about You Don't Know Jack (2010)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
Jack Kevorkian, the physician the film dramatizes, was tried four times without a conviction, but after taking an unprecedented direct role in the August 1998 death of his final patient Thomas Youk, he was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 10-to-25 years in prison. He served more than eight years and was released in June 2007.
