THE JACKET
Director: John Maybury. Screenwriter: Massy Tadjedin. Cast: Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley, Kris Kristofferson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Daniel Craig, Kelly Lynch. Running time: 102 minutes. MPAA Rating: R, for violence, language and brief sexuality/nudity. A Warner Independent Pictures release.
Claustrophobics should steer clear of “The Jacket.” I personally hate being trapped in small spaces (heck, sitting in the middle of a crowded theatre is even torture) so to unexpectedly see Adrien Brody’s character restrained and placed in a morgue drawer for long periods time was not pleasant.
Despite those scenes of discomfort, “The Jacket” is a chilling tale that’s impressive to look at despite the fact it tends to be frustrating in terms of its logic.
Brody plays Jack Starks, an American solider who survives after getting shot in the head during the first Persian Gulf War. His consolation prize: a Bronze Star and a trip back home where hitchhiking leads him to being framed for murdering a cop.
Starks’ only alibi is amnesia and given his previous accident the court cries “Gulf War Syndrome” and throws him into the nearest mental asylum. Not only is Starks physically abused by the orderlies but he’s used as a guinea pig for Dr. Becker’s experiments.
Becker (Kris Kristofferson) feels that these cruel treatments-consisting of tranquilizing, shocking and stuffing his patients into a morgue drawer-are the only way to help the criminally insane. What it actually does is send Starks into the future, where he meets an unhappy waitress (Keira Knightley) who, like the rest of the audience at this point, finds the concept hard to swallow.
The problem with “The Jacket” is that once the concept of time travel kicks in, the movie becomes a logical mess. Here’s what bugs me: while Starks is walking around in the year 2007 he’s really stuck in a morgue drawer in the year 1991. He can’t be a ghost if he can interact with others in the future. Moments like this and other loose ends make “The Jacket” become a frustrating viewing experience.
While understanding the film can be a headache, the actors do a fine job of keeping everything together. The extremely skinny Brody is a great and somewhat frightful presence while his scenes with Knightley show off a tender side of the actor. Knightley is fine here despite the fact that she kind of looks and acts like Winona Ryder. But the two’s devotion and straight-face approach to the film’s story is enough to keep “The Jacket” from being camp entertainment.
What bugged me about “The Jacket” was not only the romance between Brody and Knightley but the tension between Kristofferson’s overly sadistic character and Jennifer Jason Leigh’s sympathetic doctor. Even the other characters in the mental asylum gave the film a vibe of “hey, everyone’s supposed to be crazy so let’s overact!”
Director John Maybury gives “The Jacket” a decent enough mood and style to make it chilling for the horror/science-fiction crowd. While the time travel plot is aggravatingly complicated, it’s best to just throw logic aside and try to enjoy the film.
@@@ (out of five)