Jacket, the

 

 

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Here lately, the best way to find the boldest, darkest, most intellectually challenging films is to follow Jennifer Jason Leigh. Having watched The Machinist and The Jacket back to back, I feel a whole lot better about the future of motion pictures than I used to. There are actually scriptwriters and directors out there that are almost as dark and twisted as I am. Of course, The Jacket is primarily a showpiece for Adrien Brody, who gives a marvelous, haunting performance as Jack Starks, an ill-fated man who comes to know the past through the future - it's rather complicated (but it all makes sense in the end).

Starks' problems begin when a little Iraqi kid plugs him in the head as his unit is trying to control a crowd during a combat mission in the Gulf War. He is left for dead and may in fact have died (but I don't want to get into a tricky metaphysical discussion on this point). Then, it's a year later and we see Jack walk down a wintry road and help a woman and daughter get their car started - a seemingly innocuous event but one of great importance in this story. Then Jack bums a ride with a stranger, the car gets pulled over by a policeman, and the next thing Jack knows, he's on trial for killing a cop. No one believes his story, much of which he doesn't remember anyway, and there's no denying the fact that he suffered a serious head injury in the war, so he ends up being confined in a mental institution for the criminally insane. There are definitely some insane people at the institution - unfortunately, some of them are on the staff.

I'm still trying to figure out who told Kris Kristofferson he could act, but he shows up here as Dr. Mengel- uh, I mean Dr. Becker. His idea of treatment is shooting Jack up with some kind of hallucinatory drug, confining him in a straight jacket (you didn't think the title referred to a Members Only jacket, did you?), and shutting him up in a morgue drawer for hours on end. As a claustrophobic, that gives me all kinds of heebie jeebies, let me tell you. The thing is, though, that Jack starts seeing things while he's stuck in there - fragmented memories come at him a mile a minute, and in time he begins to see the future. He meets up with the little girl (Jackie) he helped earlier in the film (who grew up quite nicely into Keira Knightley) - only it's 2007, which is fifteen years in Jack's future. Actually, you can't really say it's Jack's future because he finds out that he died (or will die) on New Year's Day of 1993. Finding out you're dead is a bit of a shock, of course, so he tries to find out exactly how he died - his only hope to learn the truth is his link to 2007 and Jackie - and he can only see that future world while he is in the jacket and in that dark place. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays a less evil doctor in the institution who comes to share a special bond with Jack (one she is reluctant to accept at first). Hey, it's not easy for a guy in a mental institution to convince one of his doctors that he is seeing the future.

Things get rather complicated, as you might imagine, but the movie handles the time issue wonderfully, and the whole movie really does make perfect sense. Maybe they stretch things a tad at the very end, but it's not a problem. The Jacket isn't for everyone; it's too dark and mysterious to satisfy those looking for pure entertainment. For the serious-minded viewer who loves dark sojourns into the depths of human thought and possibilities, however, The Jacket is a movie you'll be telling all of your like-minded friends about.

The jacket is essentially about a gulf war vet who has amnesia.he is
brought to an institution,where his treatment consists of him being put
in a strait jacket and locked in a morgue drawer as part of some
bizarre experiment by the doctor.the catch is,that while bound in the
strait jacket,he travels through time.i'll leave it at that plot wise.i
liked this movie for the most part,although it is depressing at
times.the concept is unique,not so much the time travel aspect,but the
method of travel.the movie is very dialogue focused,so there is not a
lot of action.if you like lots of action,this might not be your
thing.Adrian Brody plays jack Stark,the gulf war vet,Kiera
Knightly(naked)plays the love interest.Jennifer Jason Leigh and Kris
Kristofferson also star in the movie.the acting is as good as most
films.the movie is like i said,depressing at times,so i found it hard
to watch,but it is thought provoking.overall,this is probably a better
than average movie. 3/5

The Jacket is a strange, fascinating ride that is part Slaughterhouse Five and part Twelve Monkeys, with a dash of Jaccob's Ladder.

Jack Sparks is injured--technically killed--in the first Gulf War and, after being sent home and following an altercation with a highway patrolman, finds himself in an institution for the criminally insane. While there, he is subjected to "therapies" that appear to send him forward in time.

The movie keeps you wondering about Jack's tenuous grasp on reality and his own sanity, while sucking you into what might be a delusion but, then again, might not...

The Jacket manages to play with reality and our own perceptions, manages to be weird and disturbing, without ever falling completely into the opaque, barely-comprehensible world of, say, a David Lynch film. Think of it as David Lynch-lite.

Fans of Donnie Darko or the films mentioned above should enjoy this one.

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