You will know Jack: Al Pacino plays Dr. Kevorkian

Usually, Al Pacino means raw emotion, a swagger, and an attitude and accent born from his upbringing in the Bronx. Yet in HBO's compelling "You Don't Know Jack," airing Saturday, Pacino is restrained, shuffling and sounding as if he's from Michigan. Pacino becomes Jack Kevorkian, known as Dr. Death for assisting terminally ill patients' suicides.

"I think what appealed to me to do it was to see if I could capture where I could go as a zealot just because there are so few who are really the real McCoy," Pacino says. "And that would be Jack. He's the guy that goes out the window."

Though Pacino makes viewers feel as if they know the crusading Michigan pathologist, he never met the man. He did, though, study hours of footage of the doctor and talked to him over the phone. He worked with a dialect coach to nail Kevorkian's accent.

"I just practiced every day," he says. "It is nice to have that advantage to try to learn it as much as you can. It's like practicing anything, like an oboe."

A Method to his madness

Long hailed as the consummate Method actor, Pacino sometimes forgot to come out of character. When making "Serpico," the 1973 film about the whistle-blowing New York cop, he was a passenger in a taxi, and he yelled at a truck driver to pull over for polluting.

"I was about ready to pull out my badge, and I said, 'What are you doing, Al?' " he says, laughing. In another movie, "I was playing a lawyer, and friends of mine were discussing a contract, and I said, 'Let me see that.' "

At least, with this role, he didn't try to help anyone commit suicide.

Kevorkian initially became the subject of controversy in 1990, when he helped the first of what would become about 130 terminally ill people kill themselves. Though a movie about assisted suicide isn't a day-brightener, it is an important, exceptionally well-done film.

Besides Pacino's worthy performance, John Goodman, Brenda Vaccaro and Susan Sarandon as his best friend, sister and an ardent supporter, respectively, all put in excellent turns. Perhaps the only shock here is that Sarandon is dowdy, in frumpy skirts, sneakers and an ugly wig.

But as Goodman says, "You can't dull her up too much."

Kevorkian's story is told without sentiment, revealing a stoic man who loves to paint and listen to Bach. He built his life on moderation and doesn't care about superficial trappings.

He does, though, fervently believe that people without hope of recovery should have the right to die. Like all true believers, he's willing to sacrifice himself for that belief.

"I can tell you a couple of things that are not in the film," Pacino says. "The whole idea of why Jack wanted to be there - that people needed to have some figure of authority there so that, when this action takes place, they will be taken care of, so a doctor is there. Otherwise they will do it themselves, and they are afraid it can go wrong.

"How about this one?" he continues. "What is crucial to the experience with Jack is that most patients that left and did not come back were different after they saw Jack. Somehow, that he existed eased their anxiety. They felt they had more control of their lives after meeting Jack, and their relatives would report back to Jack how much easier it was to live with them."

Though Pacino declines to say how he feels about euthanasia, Goodman says, "If the cases are anything like the cases we portrayed, I believe these people have the right to say when. Unfortunately, it gets political, with people making religious points."

Kevorkian built a Mercitron, a device to deliver lethal drugs to suicidal patients. He was careful that even a quadriplegic would be the one to deliver the fatal dose, so Kevorkian never pulled the plug.

Goodman's hero

Goodman, who refers to Pacino as his hero, had worked with him in a play 23 years ago. He assumes a gravelly voice and starts talking like Pacino, saying, "Me and my grandma used to stay here," referring to a hotel in the Bronx. The actors had walked around the neighborhood after shooting a scene in which Kevorkian is bailed out of jail. It was shot at the Bronx County Courthouse, next door to Yankee Stadium, during the 2009 playoffs.

Scenes throughout the movie, especially of Kevorkian interviewing terminal patients about wanting to die, are gut-wrenching. But it's the jailhouse scenes when we're reminded why Pacino has eight Oscar nominations.

Kevorkian was imprisoned several times, once for eight-plus years. During one incarceration, he went on a hunger strike, and it's so believable in the film, viewers can nearly feel the dizziness. Throughout, they feel the compassion of a man determined to do right.