You Don't Know Jack is an HBO made-for-TV movie about Dr. Jack Kevorkian (Pacino). Growing up I had heard about him on the news and his association with physician-assisted suicide, but I never really knew what was going on. This movie does a great job at filling in that gap, both historically and emotionally. It is engaging and well-acted. Pacino gives a stellar performance, at a level I haven't seen from him in quite some time. He gives his character warmth and heart, despite having an unlikable, brusque personality. We understand his motivations, even if we disagree with his philosophy or his practices. Unfortunately, the other characters (Huston, Sarandon, Goodman) were fairly bland and forgettable. They added very little to the gestalt.
Technically, the film was above average. The cinematography was surprisingly sharp and the editing was appropriately lean. The medicine was put on the backburner to discuss the ethics, which disappointed me. I don't mind medicine being the background (there's nothing worse than a movie putting medicine front and center and getting it all embarrassingly wrong), but I do feel extremely unsatisfied by the ethical discussion. Nothing was delved into in enough detail; nobody watching this movie would change their mind about the topic. Overall, this was an engrossing and enlightening film, but more for the historical aspects than the ethical ones.
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1132623/