The Jacket DVD Review

"THE JACKET" reviews

DVD

THE JACKET

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2005-10-25 21:42:24

Provider

DVD Review

Jack Starks (Adrien Brody) is a Gulf War vet who was shot in the head in the Iraq War and killed. But if he's a vet surely he can't have been killed? That's because he died and didn't die, a tragic state which envelops Starks for the duration of this movie.

The Jacket is a film which attempts, much like 12 Monkeys and Memento, to play with such hallucinatory effects as time and space; reality and altered states. Consequently, when Starks is discovered not to have died in Iraq he is shipped back to America and diagnosed with amnesia. He winds up in Vermont and hitches a lift with a motorist who ends up killing a cop. A crime Jack is tried and convicted for.

Waking up in a mental asylum run by the shadowy and sadistic Dr Becker (Kris Kristofferson) Jack is locked in a morgue drawer so he can reflect upon the error of his ways. If only he could remember.

Then the film shifts into another time period - we discover that Jack's mind is able to time-travel when he's in the morgue. Jack encounters Jackie (Keira Knightley) a now grown-up version of the young daughter he encountered years before when he helped mend her mother's car. Jack has to convince Jackie that he's telling the truth and not mad so that he can prove his innocence in the future.

While at times it seems a tad laboured, particularly as many time hoops are jumped through for the benefit of the plot, the acting is superb - in particular Brody and Jennifer Jason Leigh as a sympathetic doctor - with performances that make such a far-fetched tale quite convincing.

Among the special features are: Additional scenes and alternative endings; The Jacket: Project History featurette and The Look Of The Jacket featurette.