"The Jacket"
Jack Starks (Adrien Brody) is a member of an army unit
fighting in Iraq during the Gulf War. At the end of a
tense raid, he tries to befriend a young boy, who
pulls a gun and shoots the soldier in the head.
Thought to be dead, Jack miraculously comes back to
life but, after a year of rehab, he still does not
have his memory back. When he is arrested, later, for
the murder of a state trooper, he can't remember a
thing and is declared insane. He ends up in the hands
of a mad scientist psychiatrist, Dr. Becker (Kris
Kristofferson), whose radical form of "treatment"
forces his patients to wear "The Jacket."
Jack's Gulf War trauma and its subsequent effect on
his memory have made him an outsider in his old world.
After his "rehabilitation," which did nothing to
restore his mind, he is sent off to fend for himself.
Packing his duffel bag and dog tags, to remind him of
whom he is, he heads off to parts unknown. Along the
road he meets a young girl, Jackie (Laura Marano), and
her distraught, drugged up mother Jean (Kelly Lynch),
whose pickup truck has broken down. He gets the truck
running but, before he can even think of asking for a
ride, Jean strikes out, screams at him to get away,
jumps in the truck and takes of. A while later Jack
hitches a ride from a stranger (Brad Renfro) who
proceeds to gun down the state trooper that pulled him
over.
Jack, now a murder suspect, can remember little more
than glimpses of people and things, can't defend
himself and is found criminally insane. He is sent to
a mental hospital (which, from the actions of the
staff, is Draconian on a good day) and placed in the
hands of Dr. Becker for treatment. He is drugged up
with a variety of pharmaceuticals then, without
warning, dragged from his cell by two burly orderlies,
brought to a basement room where he is trussed up and
immobilized in a straight jacket and, to his horror,
slid into a morgue body locker.
Terrified, Jack begs to be let out and begins to
experience disjointed flashbacks to his forgotten
past. After a few hours he is released from his
confining crypt and sent back to the ward where he
meets another inmate, Rudy McKenzie (Daniel Craig).
Rudy, who may have been through the same
medieval-style treatment, gives Jack advice on how to
survive the sensory deprivation and project his mind
away from his personal horror. Jack had an experience
while under the treatment of the jacket where he is
projected into the future. He meets the grown up
version of Jackie (Kiera Knightley) and convinces her
that he, nearly 20 years ago, was the guy who saved
Jackie and her mom.
Once this "Back to the Future" premise is established,
"The Jacket" takes on an air of having Jack make
things right in his world, restore his mind, get the
girl and live happily ever after. There is an air of
trying to cover too much ground in "The Jacket" as it
combines the essence of such films as "Altered States"
and "Jacob's Ladder" and includes, at least on a
cursory level, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." As
such, the film, directed by John Maybury, takes the
story by Tom Bleeker and Marc Rocco (with scripter
Tassy Tadjedin) and tries to make it a time travel
saga, love story, psychological thriller and horror
yarn all rolled in to one. It's a bit too much story
to stuff into 102 minutes but, at times, it works
well.
The acting, while not outstanding, is solid across the
board. Adrien Brody proves his mettle as an actor and
gives a harrowing performance as a man whose past,
present and future are a confused jumble that he must,
somehow, sort out. Kiera Knightley is, initially,
distracting as the adult Jackie. The actress too self
consciously kept touching her mouth and dragging
drinking glasses across it in a way that made me feel
she was not paying attention to the proceedings.
Fortunately, as the story rolls out, the presence of
her character is dissipated by the action and Jack's
fight to break away from his tormentors.
Others in supporting roles include Jennifer Jason
Leigh as Dr. Lorenson, a psychiatrist in the hospital
who tries to help Jack. His trips to the future help
her to cure an ailing young boy experiencing seizures
are a subplot that may have been unnecessary but it is
nice to JJL on the screen. Kris Kristofferson is
saddled with the mad scientist role but his craggy
face is, as always, interesting (much of which is shot
in extreme close-up by cinematographer Peter Deming
who use the copious close-ups, especially of Brody, to
good affect). Kelly Lynch is solid as little Jackie's
junkie mother and does what she can with the miniscule
role. Laura Marano is notable as the child Jackie.
Techs are first rate with Deming's expert lensing,
which helped define the claustrophobia of being in a
straightjacket and thrust into a body locker. That
image alone brings shivers to my spine. Douglas Hall's
costume design, especially the title garment, works
well within the concept. Alan MacDonald's production
design also fits the bill. The much discussed nude sex
scene between Jack and the adult Jackie is overblown
and adds little to the film or the story.
"The Jacket" tries to do many things and succeeds in a
fair portion of them. The future-past dichotomy is
well handled though I don't know if it will stand up
to the scrutiny of repeated viewings, as a film like
"The Sixth Sense" does. There is a distinctive creep
factor infused in the film that helps bring it up a
notch in the psychological horror category. I give it
a B-.
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X-RAMR-ID: 39501
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1367989
X-RT-TitleID: 10003710
X-RT-SourceID: 386
X-RT-AuthorID: 1488
X-RT-RatingText: B-
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