The Jacket (DVD, 2005)

In Iraq in 1991, an American soldier momentarily trusts a small boy, who has a gun and shoots him in the head. "That was the first time I died," says Jack Starks, the soldier, played by Adrien Brody as if he's not quite sure he didn't. That's not a criticism, but a description: The metaphysical and real horrors undergone by Jack in this movie include dying, not dying, feeling like he's dead, wishing he were dead and being locked alive for long periods in a morgue drawer. No way to treat a returning hero.

Brody is an ideal actor for such a role, since his face can reflect such dread and suffering. He also has a cocky, upbeat speed (see "Bread and Roses"), but since "The Pianist," directors have used him for mournfulness. He has a lot to mourn this time. After being declared dead in Iraq, it's discovered he's alive after all, and Jack is returned to the States and treated for amnesia. Out on his own, he's hitching through Vermont when he comes upon a spaced-out mother (Kelly Lynch) and her worried young daughter; their car has broken down. After helping them, he gets a lift with a passing motorist, who soon enough kills a cop. Jack passes out and wakes up to find himself a convicted cop-killer, sent to a mental asylum. If only he could find that woman and daughter, he could establish an alibi. But the woman was zoned out, and the daughter was only a child.

The asylum is not one of your modern and enlightened asylums. Edgar Allan Poe would raise his eyebrows. It's run by Dr. Becker (Kris Kristofferson), whose theories are a cover for his sadism, or maybe it's the other way around. He believes that locking cold and wet patients in morgue drawers for long hours will help them, I dunno, get in touch with their feelings, or remember why they're there. Who knows.

The movie now begins to play with time. In a gas station, Jack, forlorn and homeless, is befriended by a woman named Jackie (Keira Knightley, from "Bend It Like Beckham"). She takes him home, cares for him, and here's where we have to get crafty to preserve plot points. To make a long plot short, when he is in the morgue drawer, Jack's brain, traumatized by a head wound, amnesia and shock treatments, is able to time-travel. Or maybe Jack himself physically time travels; the people who meet him on his journeys certainly think he's really there.

It's up to Jackie to believe this story, and act on it, so that Jack can use his knowledge of the future to make important decisions in the present. Or maybe it's in the future that he makes the decisions, and in the past that he carried them out. Take notes. Able to assist him, if she believes his story, is Dr. Lorenson (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and even the evil retired Dr. Becker himself. Lorenson always looked askance at Becker's barbaric methods. Try it yourself sometime, looking askance. Can be fun.

Meanwhile, the movie, taking its cue from Jack's deep weariness and depression, trudges through its paces as if it were deep and meaningful, which I am afraid it is not. It involves two or three time-paradox tricks too many to take seriously as anything other than a plot crafted to jump through all the temporal hoops. I was reminded of "Jacob's Ladder" (1990), also about a traumatized vet who descends into the abyss between the real and the imagined. I admired it at the time, but have been meaning to view it again after the Rev. Andrew Greeley told me he thinks it's one of the most spiritual films of our time.

I discovered this film quite by accident. I was searching YouTube for music by Brian Eno and I ran across a clip of the final scene of this movie with its ethereal, hauntingly melodic love theme and I was hooked. The film is first class work you'd expect from producers like Soderberg and Clooney. I can only characterize it as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest meets Jacob's Ladder. Its premise of time travel born of the damaged mind of a Gulf war veteran is cleanly delivered and woven seamlessly into a single love story spanning some fifteen years, packed into four tragic days of a mental patient's life. Yes, it's deep but ever so moving. Adrien Brody and Keira Knightley are superb in their roles with Kris Kristofersen, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Mackenzie Phillips giving strong performances as well. The production is lean and mean with no fluff, no gratuitous sex or violence. It makes your mind work and the payoff is the heart wrenching tear it will bring to your eye. Once you put The Jacket on, you will transcend time and space and turn the tides of fate. And you'll always want to go back.

When I started watching this movie I was a bit skeptical if I would end up liking the story. I was sincerely hoping the predictable storyline unfolding (guy meets girl a long time ago, they somehow find each other in the future, and the whole age difference no longer seems creepy...much) would not be all there was to it. Especially since it has two of my favorite actors, Adrien Brody and Keira Knightley. Not the typical couple you'd expect, I think, but it did end up working quite well.

The whole movie did, to my delight. The storyline had wonderful twists and turns, some where you could guess what might happen and others that completely blind-sighted you. Everything is delivered so well that (and this is such a crucial point in many movies) even the far-fetched is believable. At the same time, it also brings home frightful realities, things that happen all the time and we turn a blind eye to, most notable why Jack gets stuck in that ward in the first place. That was possibly the scariest part of the whole movie.

And for those that have a bit of trouble connecting the dots the first time around, watch it again. The first time I think there is a lot of information and things going on that most people won't really catch or understand at first. Sometimes knowing what's going to happen allows our mind to stop racing trying to figure out how it's all going to end, and instead focuses on the minor, seemingly insignificant details and words that suddenly connect. Watch it again, it's more than worth it!

I don't care what the people had to say about this movie. I enjoyed it. It was one of those movies that kept you guessing and on the edge of your seat. Adrien Brody and Keira Knightley did a great acting job in the film. Also Kris Kristoffersondid a fine job playing the doctor. If you like movies with flashbacks and keep you guessing all the time you will like The Jacket.

This was a movie set in the war and how the affects of the war was on certain soldiers. this gentleman has many problems and ends up in trouble because he accepted a ride from someone who meant to do no good for anyone, and he got charged with a murder that he wasn't part of. he ends up in a hospital and they put him in a morgue type place in a jacket that is bond that you can't move your arms or get out of. this gentleman goes through this for a long period of time and finally escapes and with the help of a doctor, he goes out to see why all this is happening to him. Now you have to figure out if you are in a dream or is it actually happening. I am still sort of confused as to whether its dream or actual. Gool luck this is a great movie.