Review of The Jacket (2005) by Ilya P — 23 Nov 2008

The Jacket (2005).

Directed by John Maybury.

Starring Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley, Kris Kristofferson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Daniel Craig«Jack Starks: I was 27 years old the first time I died.» Little do we know what death is all about. We only get to know what it's like once we experience it. But what if it was possible to travel into future and to realise that you will die very soon? What would you do? Would you try to prevent this or would you just leave it like that? 27 year old Jack Starks is a lucky man. Being shot in the head during his military services in the Gulf War he miraculously survives; the only bad thing is he also gets Amnesia that prevents him from remembering any of his past life. Some time later he helps a little girl and her mother with a broken car, little girl asks if she can have his dog tags and he gently agrees to give it to her. Later this day he gets a lift from a mysterious stranger who looks way too friendly. They get stopped by a policemen and that's where it all goes terribly wrong. The next thing that Jack sees is him attending a court meeting that will decide wherever he is guilty of killing this same policeman that he met before or not. He says that he doesn't remember anything that happened and he also claims that he never killed anyone. The judge decides that Jack is physically unstable and sends him to mental institution. If only Jack knew what awaits him there, he wished he never got into this mess. Sounds like a horror movie when in fact it has nothing to do with this genre. "The Jacket" is a psychological thriller about time travelling; also some people might compare it to "The Butterfly Effect", when in fact both are completely different movies. If "The Butterfly Effect" more of a sci-fi movie, "The Jacket" is much more psychological and in my opinion better since it doesn't have so many holes in the script and much more believable. Yet the whole idea of time travelling in this movie is not as self explanatory, it is very believable. It is hard to understand what makes Jack time travel; is it the drugs that Dr. Becker injects him with, or is it the drawer where Jack has been kept during the whole process or is it the Jacket itself that does this to him? Who knows, I still have no idea what it was, yet I did enjoy it. The whole movie concept is great; a guy who miraculously survives a bullet shot gets amnesia and is send to the mental hospital for a crime that he didn't commit. Once he is there he is been experimented on by a doctor. The experiment involves the doctor injecting him with some sort of a drug and later on storing him in the drawer for a certain amount of time. What doctor doesn't know is that it causes the character to time travel into the future where he finds out that he is going to die in a couple of days in the time where he came from. Sounds crazy and so it is, crazy but fascinating. Visual effects were somewhat great. We get all this close shots of Jack blinking when he is about to time travel and all the colour mixtures and fragments of past & future in his eyes; the director caught that really well. We also get close shots of characters mouth, eyes, teeth, in order to see his emotions. Adrien Brody gives yet another terrific performance that is his second best after the Oscar Winning performance in World War II biopic "The Pianist". He is very genuine and he has a real talent for acting. He doesn't overreact and he is a perfect match for the leading role in this movie. Keira Knightley is great as the girl that he falls in love with, they both have a great chemistry and it is sometimes sad to watch them together as you know that towards the end it is never going to happen. Kris Kristofferson is great as a confused and slightly mad doctor, and Daniel Craig is amazingly good in his unusual role of a man who suffers from a depression caused by his wife leaving him. Yet is the most of the film looks great, there is a feeling of something missing; some sort of a detail or perhaps some little explanation. Like what does it that causes Dr. Becker to experiment on his patients; what made him the kind of person he is? Why the movie is called "The Jacket" that it is actually the combination of the drug, the claustrophobia of the drawer where the main character is kept and lastly the jacket itself that makes him time travel? Or is it just a part of Jack's mind? What if it is all happening in his head and he actually died right at the start when he was shot in the head by the Iraqi boy? The ending also seems very cautious. It can tell different things. I found that there are possibly can be 3 different endings to this movie, all based on what the viewer is like It's like the director never really intended to explain the ending; he just left a big fat question mark at the end that needs some self resolving form the viewers. Or does it really needs explanation? Perhaps not, there is no right or wrong, it is just the way you look at it. Yet what I like about this movie is the fact that Jack finally realises that there is no way of preventing something that is going to happen. That is why he decides to save someone else's life rather than his own and that is what eventually kills him. How was he to know that? "The Jacket" is an underrated movie that turns out to be very entertaining and very remarkable even though it isn't quite there. But who said that a movie has to be perfect in order to be good?Review Date: 23rd of November, 2008.