The Jacket Review
by Robin Clifford (robin AT reelingreviews DOT com)March 9th, 2005
"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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