| The Jacket | | Cast : | Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley, Daniel Craig | | Director : | John Maybury | | Studio : | Warner Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | March 04, 2005 | | DVD Released Date : | June 21, 2005 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 07, 2005 | | Summary | The Jacket scores with Brody's performance | Content
 | Adrien Brody (The Pianist, The Singing Detective) stars as Jack Starks, a veteran who got shot in the head and miraculously survived. One day on the road, he meets a little girl and her mother as he fixes their car for them. Then, he is thrown into a mental place, led by doctor Kris Kristofferson (Blade Trilogy, A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries) and the good doctor puts Brody in a straight jacket and shoves him in a small compartment. Brody goes all crazy until he finds out he can go into the future and that's where he meets actress Keira Knightley (Pirates Of The Caribbean, The Hole). Brody finds out that Knightley is the little girl he helped out on the road. Suddenly, he finds out that he dies and he goes forward into the future to try to figure out who killed in and how he died. Interesting premise anchored by Adrien Brody's performance. Kristofferson is really creepy as the doctor. Also starring Jennifer Jason Leigh (In The Cut, Backdraft), Daniel Craig (Layer Cake, Sylvia) and Kelly Lynch (Road House, Mr. Magoo) |
| Rating | | | Date | August 06, 2005 | | Summary | Long live the Organization for the Organized! | Content
| Here lately, the best way to find the boldest, darkest, most intellectually challenging films is to follow Jennifer Jason Leigh. Having watched The Machinist and The Jacket back to back, I feel a whole lot better about the future of motion pictures than I used to. There are actually scriptwriters and directors out there that are almost as dark and twisted as I am. Of course, The Jacket is primarily a showpiece for Adrien Brody, who gives a marvelous, haunting performance as Jack Starks, an ill-fated man who comes to know the past through the future - it's rather complicated (but it all makes sense in the end).
Starks' problems begin when a little Iraqi kid plugs him in the head as his unit is trying to control a crowd during a combat mission in the Gulf War. He is left for dead and may in fact have died (but I don't want to get into a tricky metaphysical discussion on this point). Then, it's a year later and we see Jack walk down a wintry road and help a woman and daughter get their car started - a seemingly innocuous event but one of great importance in this story. Then Jack bums a ride with a stranger, the car gets pulled over by a policeman, and the next thing Jack knows, he's on trial for killing a cop. No one believes his story, much of which he doesn't remember anyway, and there's no denying the fact that he suffered a serious head injury in the war, so he ends up being confined in a mental institution for the criminally insane. There are definitely some insane people at the institution - unfortunately, some of them are on the staff.
I'm still trying to figure out who told Kris Kristofferson he could act, but he shows up here as Dr. Mengel- uh, I mean Dr. Becker. His idea of treatment is shooting Jack up with some kind of hallucinatory drug, confining him in a straight jacket (you didn't think the title referred to a Members Only jacket, did you?), and shutting him up in a morgue drawer for hours on end. As a claustrophobic, that gives me all kinds of heebie jeebies, let me tell you. The thing is, though, that Jack starts seeing things while he's stuck in there - fragmented memories come at him a mile a minute, and in time he begins to see the future. He meets up with the little girl (Jackie) he helped earlier in the film (who grew up quite nicely into Keira Knightley) - only it's 2007, which is fifteen years in Jack's future. Actually, you can't really say it's Jack's future because he finds out that he died (or will die) on New Year's Day of 1993. Finding out you're dead is a bit of a shock, of course, so he tries to find out exactly how he died - his only hope to learn the truth is his link to 2007 and Jackie - and he can only see that future world while he is in the jacket and in that dark place. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays a less evil doctor in the institution who comes to share a special bond with Jack (one she is reluctant to accept at first). Hey, it's not easy for a guy in a mental institution to convince one of his doctors that he is seeing the future.
Things get rather complicated, as you might imagine, but the movie handles the time issue wonderfully, and the whole movie really does make perfect sense. Maybe they stretch things a tad at the very end, but it's not a problem. The Jacket isn't for everyone; it's too dark and mysterious to satisfy those looking for pure entertainment. For the serious-minded viewer who loves dark sojourns into the depths of human thought and possibilities, however, The Jacket is a movie you'll be telling all of your like-minded friends about. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 05, 2005 | | Summary | Like a page off the Dead Zone. | Content
| I just finish watching this movie and it is about a person coming back to life after dying in the gulf war back in 1992....jus like the pages off of the DEAD ZONE but with a better flow. Adriln Brody plays the part of the insane lunatic. Now Knightley is a good actress and she tries her best to get into that emotional state that her part demands but she has that joyful look and the part needs that 'sad life' look. I heard that Katie Holmes was slated for the part and i agree she would of been very good at it...she has that great 'sad life' look but the film's big producer 'mandalay' would not finance the film unless Keira gets the part so there you go. Nevertheless, she was not half bad and money talks so there you go. Be prepared to be frightena as we take a glimps of how it feels to be strap into a straight jacket and put into a confined dark space...like an oven. If feel like it was you who is in there. I would not be able to handle it but Brody with his Gulf War experience, helps his resolve for such horrifying treatement.
The ending is kinda sad but i won't give it away. I cry a tear and i haven't did that since Jack said to Rose 'You jump, I jump....Remember' from Titanic. BTW my ex gf has my copy of Titanic so if you read this....I WANT IT BACK!!!
Watch this movie but don't turn the lights out. Its not a horror genre....just a good scare in your pants phycotic thriller so enjoy!
|
| Rating | | | Date | August 05, 2005 | | Summary | Reincarnation by Morgue Drawer....Quirky, Intriguing, Entertaining.... | Content
| A nice young man (Adrien Brody) is dealt two very bad hands and yet triumphs due to his indomitable will. First, he is shot in the head during Desert Storm by an Iraqi boy whom he is attempting to befriend. He miraculously survives despite being "tagged" as dead. Second, he hitches a ride with a closet psychopath who murders a state trooper and pins the crime on him. He is sentenced to a state mental hospital for the criminally insane (in 1993), where he is subjected to mind-altering drugs and long term isolation in a morgue drawer by a misguided psychiatrist (Kris Kristofferson). It is during these sessions that he develops the ability to travel ahead in time (to 2007), returning only when they remove him from the drawer. During these forays into the future, he develops a relationship with a self-destructive loser, Jackie (Kiera Knightley), who is reliving her deceased mother's lonely, wretched, alcoholic lifestyle. Strangely enough, he had met and befriended the mother and daughter just prior to his incarceration (she was probably 6 years old at the time). Apparently, there is some cosmic connection between himself and the girl, since his time travelling always ends up on her doorstep. As he develops his ability to time travel via morgue drawer, he helps some of the characters and himself by (apparently) escaping from his unjust imprisonment into the future for a happy life with a rejuvenated Jackie.
Observations: The director gets a bit too "artsy" with the special effects, and the quick cuts and loud noises get annoying after a while. The acting is generally superb, with even Kris K. turning in a good performance (his first, in my book). The story is engrossing, but requires complete focus to catch all the subtleties and not-so-obvious clues. There are a few loose ends that will (of course) only become evident if you watch the DVD:
1.) Where does the knowledge of how to help Babak originally come from? Jack tells Dr. Lorenson (Jennifer Jason Leigh) how she cured Babak after Jackie reads about the case in the future (on a laptop, see Loose End #3). She then cures Babak using this knowledge, but would not have been able to do so without Jack first telling her how she did it. From what original source did the knowledge actually arise? Like the chicken and the egg, it could not have simply appeared spontaneously.
2) Why does Jackie's drunken, dissolute mother (Kelly Lynch) suddenly change her life so dramatically after a brief visit and letter from a wierd stranger. If severe alcoholism and drug addiction were this easy to treat, they would have been eradicated long ago. I think it more likely that she would have poured a stiff drink after he left and used his letter to roll a joint. Spontaneous character reversals strain credibility.
3) Jackie's ability to determine every minute detail of the events that occurred at the asylum 15 years before, including Jack's death, using only a laptop computer is typical of an increasingly trite, simplistic way to present expository information. It pops up in movie after movie. If you need detailed, relevant background info, don't rely on dialog or characterization to present it to the audience, simply go to the nearest computer and quickly retrieve every bit the info you need to propel the plot. Convenient, but simplistic and (even to those who are computer literate, let alone a wasted druggy) generally not possible. Also, let's face it, she would have hocked the laptop long ago for a carton of Lucky Strikes and a bottle of Vodka.
We accept these loose ends however, because they do indeed propel the plot to a happy, rather simplistic conclusion. Jack is a nice guy and deserves a break. Several of the alternative endings (Special Features) present much more realistic, complex resolutions that would greatly improve the movie, but would be truly depressing....and let's face it, we could all use a little spiritual uplift once in a while.
This is an excellent, challenging, complex movie....I recommend it to those who enjoyed Memento and Mulholland Drive. The DVD Special Features provide some interesting insights and should not be missed. The director, John Maybury, is a real trip, and you will enjoy his first impression of Kiera Knightley. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 03, 2005 | | Summary | Is Today Yesterday or Tomorrow Today | Content
| John Maybury has made an excellent if hard to define film. Jack Starks is killed during Desert Storm only to be revived. He later ends up in a mental hospital for the criminally insane for the killing of a cop he does not remember. During his incarceration he is given a discredited drug treatment and stuck into the isolation ward which is actually a morgue slab for bodies. Starks then wakes up in the future, meeting a young lady he met years before when she was a child. She is a mess and the two of them try to figure what happened to Starks.
Trying to define "The Jacket" is not easy. It is certainly a drama, but it is not horror and science fiction in name only. There is time travel, but not like in "Quantum Leap". This movie reminds me more of "Donnie Darko" or "Existence". There is so much change of realities that you do not know which one is the real existence and which is the alternate. Adrian Brody and Keira Knightly are both excellent as Jack Starks and the adult waitress Jackie. There is a real chemistry between the two of them and they are both creepy enough looking together to pull of surreal characters. Kris Kristofferson is perfect as Dr. Becker. Becker tries to help Starks with a discredited treatment and actually hurts Starks, or maybe not. Jennifer Jason Leigh is under used as the other "good" psychiatrist. Kelly Lynch as the mother is almost an afterthought and anybody could have been used. The Jacket is a dark movie with every character being broken somehow, yet there is redemption or justice for everyone. This is not necessarily a feel good movie by any means, just very well made. Very intelligent and Highly recommended. |
|
|
|
|
