Jinx

I just saw a movie called the I inside, that pretty much has the same plotline as the jacket and was equally as inscrutable and aimless. You can skip it unless your nuts for Ryan Phillipe.

Skittles

If you like scary, twisted, suspenseful movies, the "The Jacket" is just the movie for you to go see. "The Jacket" is different from the usual "scary movie" because, the theme of the movie leads you one way and the actual ending of the movie startles you in another. Its one of those movies that you have to keep up with or you'll get lost for sure.

The story line is very unique. It starts out in Iraq 1991; right in the middle of combat, solider, Jack Starks is shot and wounded in the head. Almost mistaken for dead, he recovers and one year later is transferred back to the U.S. Virginia to be exact. Walking down a snowy road with his belongings on his back, Jack comes across a woman and her little girl sitting next to their broken down car. The mother is a very troubled and shoos him away after he helps them fix the car. The little girl on the other hand, liked Jack. A little further down the road he hitches a ride with a man on his way to the Canadian border. Things seem fine until they get pulled over. He feels uneasy when the man asks him if he has ever been to jail before. That's all he can remember from that day, and there he was sitting in the courtroom being charged with shooting and killing an officer. He knows he didn't do it, but he can't remember what actually happened that day. He had also forgotten to get the man's name. The court couldn't ask the little girl or her mother anything about Jack, because he never asked their last names.

Since he had been injured in war, he was found innocent by reason of insanity. He is sentenced to spend the next large portion of his life in an institution for the criminally insane. While there an old crazy doctor does strange injection experiments on him that were banned back in the 70's. He is injected with some study fluid and placed in a straight jacket, strapped onto a rolling table that was made for dead bodies, and slid into a tiny morgue drawer that was meant for storing dead bodies. While in there, he gets painful flashbacks, but finally gets a vision of that day the cop was shot. He now knows the truth, but still no name. Day after day his "dreams" get more distinct, longer and less painful. It's almost like he is actually there. He meets a girl that seems to recognize him from her childhood, but can't believe it because Jack Starks supposedly died Jan. 1, 1993. Realizing that back in his real life, that's only 4 days from now. The other doctors get suspicious about Jack's therapy from the old doctor, so the old man stops putting him in "the jacket". He has to find ways to get back into the jacket so he can go into the future and find out how he dies before it's too late.

This movie is a fantastic thriller with a shocking ending. It's Creative and unlike any other movie out there. Go and see it! I give it an A!

Adam

Skittles likes this movie a lot and that's cool. But I have to disagree with his calling the ending shocking. If anything, it's too pat. Furthermore, for a picture that is so itent on being grim, it sure takes the happy way out. I think the A rating is beyond generous.

Sir Dizzy

After recuperating from a gunshot wound to the head, Gulf War veteran Jack Starks (Adrien Brody) returns to his native Vermont suffering from amnesia. When he is accused of murdering a police officer and committed to a mental institution, a physician, Dr. Becker (Kris Kristofferson), puts him on a controversial treatment regimen in which Starks is injected with experimental drugs, confined in a straight-jacket, and locked for extended periods in the body drawer of the basement morgue. In his drugged and disoriented state, Starks' mind propels him into the future, where he meets Jackie (Keira Knightley), and discovers that he is destined to die in four days. With no idea how he dies or who kills him Jack goes on a journey to try and discover his fate and with the help of Jackie hopefully together, they can find a way to save him from his fate.

This is one of those "what the %$&*" kind of movies that if you ever sat down and tried to dissect it the movie logically would probably fall to pieces. This happens with most time travel movies, some do it well Terminator, Donnie Darko some do it horribly Timeline for example. The Jacket does it very well, no we're not talking Donnie Darko good but the movie does an excellent job of entertaining you all the while it never really truly explains how the time travel is possible. To me this can actually be a good thing; too many movies become mucked up in their own explanations of how things work and why they work. Sometimes its nice to have a movie like the Jacket that doesn't even really bother to explain how it works just rather lets you know that it works, plain and simple and move on with the story. That is this movie in a nutshell sure there are times you will go "what the %$&*" all the while entranced by what is happening on the screen.

I am truly beginning to have an appreciation for Adrien Brody as he is one heck of an actor and he truly just mesmerizes you when he is on screen. The reason the Jacket works is because of Brody who carries the movie with his acting and makes you feel for Jack Starks and wonder if he will manage to get out of the mess he has gotten into. Keira Knightley on the other hand I have come to the conclusion is just eye candy, he parts are rarely very broad nor does she have the ability to carry a movie, she is just fun to look at while the other actors make the movie enjoyable. She just coasts through the Jacket, while Brody is the one who makes you interested in it and wanting more. The Jacket was highly enjoyable with plenty of faults as well as graces, but still worth a viewing or two.