THE JACKET begins as an intriguing, even unsettling consideration of time, space, and the nature of reality. But in a twist as breathtaking as it is unexpected, it commits the mortal sin of becoming conventional. Its all the more disappointing because of its director, John Maybury, a filmmaker and artist who was iconoclast Derek Jarmans filmic heir. Instead of pushing the edges of envelopes, hes chosen a project that allows him to do little more than wrap up a lot of nothing in a very pretty box.
Adrien Brody stars as Jack Starks, an interesting name for a character who will be spending the films running time challenging the audience to figure out if he is or isnt stark raving mad. And who could fault him for going over the edge? He starts out by getting a bullet through the head during Gulf War I and survives only to have bouts of amnesia and, as his attending doctor predicts, certain personality changes. Released from the hospital in 1992, he has two chance encounters as he hoofs it in the middle of nowhere that will have a profound effect on his future. The first is a wasted mother and her wise-beyond-her-years daughter stranded on a stretch of snowy highway. Jack fixes their truck and makes a present of his dog tags to the little girl. Later, hes given a ride by a good ol boy whos just a little trigger happy when pulled over by a state trooper. Unfortunately for Jack, the murder is pinned on him, but hes found not guilty by reason of insanity and shipped off to a psychiatric hospital until hes deemed sane enough to be let out. At first, it goes smoothly, or as smoothly as these things can go. He even makes friends with a perky psycho who spends time pondering whether threatening to kill his wife 30 times was crazy or just stupid. Thats just before informing one of the staff psychiatrists (Jennifer Jason Leigh in a role that woefully underutilizes her) that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will be visiting that afternoon and the wont be bringing him flowers.
It isnt long, though, before Jacks being woken from a sound sleep, drugged, trussed up in a straight jacket by another of the hospitals psychiatrists (Kris Kristofferson) and confined for hours in a drawer in the morgue. The idea is that it will re-program Jacks brain, instead, Jacks brain becomes a jumble of incidents that may or may not be projecting him 15 years into the future and another encounter with that little girl by the side of the road.
Maybury employs a visual conceit designed as much to disorient the viewer as to offer up tantalizing pieces of the puzzle. Scattershot memories in vivid if hallucinogenic colors bombard the screen with a vivid simulacrum of what madness must feel like from the inside. Its contrasted with a dystopian cast to Jacks real life, bitter grays broken up with swaths of blood-clot red. The setting is perfect. Brody is, too. Hes an actor that can emote the agony of a sensitive soul suffering unspeakable tortures with such minimalism that the pain, physical or emotional, is all the more palpable. Its Keira Knightly in what appears to be several pounds of eye makeup, as the adult Jackie who misses the thespian boat altogether. As the misanthropic good Samaritan who gives Jack a lift in the future, she have comes close to getting a handle on how to play the sort of dissolute world-weariness called for. One can only imagine Leigh in the part as the hard-bitten waitress watching her life going nowhere fast with the right dash of ironic angst and bravado.
By the time everything is sorted out and the last secret is revealed, its one that is so pallid, so insipid, so painfully unoriginal that there is nothing left to do but sigh heavily before gathering up ones belongings and leaving the theater.
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