Review of Jacob's Ladder (1990) by Allen G — 31 May 2013

A cool and trippy film but not very refined or as thought out as it needs to be to pull off all of its ideas. A failed experiment in many ways but still a general success in what it tries to convey.

Robbins is good as always here and the rest of the cast are strong too. There's some cool visuals and nice ideas here with a general murky and dark tone throughout. The script is pretty typical of the genre and makes no attempt to solve the issues that arise from that, mainly the lack of clarity.

The bad-trip psychological elements are nothing special here but they make for some cool scenes of Tim Robbins being confused which is actually a pretty effective technique. Worth mentioning that the plot resembles that of a short film called The Seed in some aspects which is worth checking out if you enjoy this film.

It feels like a 90s movie which is worth mentioning solely because it was released right at the start of the decade yet seems to be quite separate from many of the throwbacks of the 80s.

You can tell from the first fifteen minutes that this one isn't going to be the most comfortable viewing experience with its choppy nature and generally uncertain elements that make the end result more frustrating than scary but its consistently interesting thanks to the performances and the novelty of wanting to know all the answers.

The dialogue has some special moments but is generally average for the genre- there is one great line which is featured in a song I like ('Rabbit In Your Headlights' by UNKLE and Thom Yorke) and its below:

"If you're frightened of dying, and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. If you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the Earth.".

I found the ending quite predictable in all honesty, though as the film progressed I began to doubt myself, but it wasn't just thrown in there (it's in the bloody title of the film!) but it wasn't particularly special either but its more about the overall experience anyway, this film gets too much crap for its ending but there's an hour and 50 minutes of material before it.

I don't think its good enough to be the cult-classic that some view it as, it's an incomplete film (the fact that 20 minutes were cut from its final section is evident) but its a decent attempt and an interesting viewing experience and its memorable too even if its only a shell of what it could have been.