Review of The Jacket (2005) by Kevin G — 11 Nov 2010

Private Jack Starks (Adrien Brody) is shot in the head and presumed dead during the Gulf War in 1991. At the morgue he comes to life and is later discharged from the army. A year later he ends up in lifechanging situation in Vermont when a highway patrol policeman is shot and killed by the guy Jack has been hitchhiking with. Jack is also shot in the head and incriminated by the real killer, who leaves his gun close to the injured Jack. Due to.

His amnesia he is sentenced in court to the mental institution Alpine Grove for insane criminals. At Alpine Grove, Jack ends up as a guinea pig for Dr. Thomas Beckers (Kris Kristofferson).

Experiments, who drugs and dresses him in a straightjacket and locks him in a corpse drawer in the basement. While locked in the drawer, Jack travels to 2007, where he tries to figure out what happend to him. Jack envisions that the only exit from the institution is through the straightjacket and the visions in the corpsedrawer...

"The Jacket" is a messy psychological thriller, partly based on a Jack London novel. It suffers from a script that is not clear nor intriguing, and I assume the idea was to create a movie with a structure that would take the viewer on a journey into an alternative existence and time-travel slightly similar to "Donnie Darko". Unfortunately it backfires and manages to create nothing exciting for the viewer instead. The acting is not bad from the involved, but not on top either. Never been a fan of either Brody or Knightley for that matter, which can have effected my opinion about "The Jacket". Nevertheless, this is nothing to hang in the Christmas tree.