THE JACKET (2005), dir. John Maybury
Like many supernatural-themed movies, “The Jacket” makes certain demands of its audience. In this case, it’s: one, that they’re willing to accept the idea ghosts have nothing better to do than help sullen-eyed teenagers they barely knew before expiring; and two, that the course of an entire life can be predicated by a single event 14 years in the past.
The third expectation is no one will care this movie ultimately makes no sense, so long as it makes good on the tragic romance at its center between Jack Starks (Adrien Brody), who may be crazy or may actually be traveling through time, and a young woman named Jackie (Keira Knightley). The pair first meets in 1993, when she is a little girl stranded beside a Vermont road with her mom. Jack fixes their truck for them, but Jean’s mother proves ungrateful, so he ends up hitching a ride with a mysterious stranger who kills a cop, then frames him for it.
The authorities refuse to believe Jack’s story that someone else committed the murder, since he has mental problems stemming from being shot in the head while serving in the Persian Gulf. He ends up being committed to a hospital for the criminally-insane, where the gruff head shrink (Kris Kristofferson) subjects him to an outdated form of therapy, which involves being fit into a strait jacket, then slid into a locker.
Trapped, Jack has a vision of the year 2007, where he meets a grown-up Jackie whom he doesn’t immediately recognize. She, in turn, doesn’t know who he is either, both because he has barely aged since she last saw him 14 years prior, and because it turns out Jack Starks died on January 1, 1993. From then on, the movie see-saws back-and-forth between 1993 and 2007, between Jack and Jean falling in love in the future and trying to unravel the mysterious circumstances of his death, and his using knowledge from 2007 to help people in the past, including the one kindly doctor in the whole asylum (Jennifer Jason-Leigh).
Clues and events fall into place like puzzle pieces, and the cinematography has a certain bleak consistency. Writer Massy Tadjedin and director John Maybury, however, seem less assured about the film’s overall tone, alternating between creepiness whenever Jack is in solitude and a more straightforward, dramatic mood for scenes outside the locker.
“The Jacket” also strains credibility in ways other movies about mentally-unstable individuals who think they’re time travelers – “12 Monkeys” comes to mind – manage to avoid. Granted, Adrien Brody is a good enough actor to sell every scene he’s in, but considering how crazy his story sounds, his character has a relatively easy time getting others to believe him, and the most incredulous instance may be his convincing Leigh’s medical professional to perform electro-shock therapy on a small boy who appears to have autism.
In addition, the opening footage of the Persian Gulf War left a bad taste in my mouth, mainly because the protagonist’s status as a veteran is completely incidental. He could be a truck driver and the film would more or less turn out the same; but that he was a soldier, along with some brief dialogue about how patients like Jack are treated as criminals, allow the illusion this movie has some kind of relevance today. But really, “The Jacket” is little more than New Age treacle dressed up like something considerably more important, and ends up ignoring some basic time travel-related paradoxes for the sake of a lazy, feel-good ending, where nothing is impossible except actually buying this hokum.
Overall rating: ** (out of ****)
The third expectation is no one will care this movie ultimately makes no sense, so long as it makes good on the tragic romance at its center between Jack Starks (Adrien Brody), who may be crazy or may actually be traveling through time, and a young woman named Jackie (Keira Knightley). The pair first meets in 1993, when she is a little girl stranded beside a Vermont road with her mom. Jack fixes their truck for them, but Jean’s mother proves ungrateful, so he ends up hitching a ride with a mysterious stranger who kills a cop, then frames him for it.
The authorities refuse to believe Jack’s story that someone else committed the murder, since he has mental problems stemming from being shot in the head while serving in the Persian Gulf. He ends up being committed to a hospital for the criminally-insane, where the gruff head shrink (Kris Kristofferson) subjects him to an outdated form of therapy, which involves being fit into a strait jacket, then slid into a locker.
Trapped, Jack has a vision of the year 2007, where he meets a grown-up Jackie whom he doesn’t immediately recognize. She, in turn, doesn’t know who he is either, both because he has barely aged since she last saw him 14 years prior, and because it turns out Jack Starks died on January 1, 1993. From then on, the movie see-saws back-and-forth between 1993 and 2007, between Jack and Jean falling in love in the future and trying to unravel the mysterious circumstances of his death, and his using knowledge from 2007 to help people in the past, including the one kindly doctor in the whole asylum (Jennifer Jason-Leigh).
Clues and events fall into place like puzzle pieces, and the cinematography has a certain bleak consistency. Writer Massy Tadjedin and director John Maybury, however, seem less assured about the film’s overall tone, alternating between creepiness whenever Jack is in solitude and a more straightforward, dramatic mood for scenes outside the locker.
“The Jacket” also strains credibility in ways other movies about mentally-unstable individuals who think they’re time travelers – “12 Monkeys” comes to mind – manage to avoid. Granted, Adrien Brody is a good enough actor to sell every scene he’s in, but considering how crazy his story sounds, his character has a relatively easy time getting others to believe him, and the most incredulous instance may be his convincing Leigh’s medical professional to perform electro-shock therapy on a small boy who appears to have autism.
In addition, the opening footage of the Persian Gulf War left a bad taste in my mouth, mainly because the protagonist’s status as a veteran is completely incidental. He could be a truck driver and the film would more or less turn out the same; but that he was a soldier, along with some brief dialogue about how patients like Jack are treated as criminals, allow the illusion this movie has some kind of relevance today. But really, “The Jacket” is little more than New Age treacle dressed up like something considerably more important, and ends up ignoring some basic time travel-related paradoxes for the sake of a lazy, feel-good ending, where nothing is impossible except actually buying this hokum.
Overall rating: ** (out of ****)
Labels: **, 00's, Adrien Brody, John Maybury, Keira Knightley
posted by Phil | 6:06 AM
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