The Jacket
(2005)
Adrien Brody treads where Tim Robbins has
gone before. I liked John Maybury’s Jacob’s Ladder knock-off much more than I
thought I would; it doesn’t have any new ideas, but Maybury tells his story
skillfully, and concentrates on the performances rather than becoming
distracted with flashy visuals (the biggest problem with Adrian Lyne’s film). It
helps too that, for all its central conceit, it’s internally coherent.
Rather than Vietnam, Brody plays a Gulf War
veteran who was pronounced dead on the operating table. He survives, suffering
from periodic amnesia, and returns to the States. There, he is wrongly accused
of the murder of cop and ends up committed to a mental hospital. An institution
where gimlet-eyed Kris Kristofferson is carrying out unethical experiments on
his patients.
This appears to have the effect of sending Brody forward in time from 1992 to
2007. He’s slowly able to put together the pieces of what happened to him in
his present/near future with the aid of knowledge from 15 years hence. Which includes (an American-accented) Keira
Knightley as the older version of a child he knew briefly in his former life
(with this and The Time Traveller’s Wife, and Steven Moffat Doctor Who, there’s a slightly
uncomfortable trend in focussing on characters becoming romantically entwined with
those they also knew as minors).
Brody’s well-cast, all heavy-lidded
sedation and ungainly movement, and Maybury supports him with known faces even
in minor roles (Kelly Lynch, Steven Mackintosh, Jennifer Jason Leigh). Most arresting
is an almost unrecognisable Daniel Craig as a fellow inmate; it’s a welcome
reminder that stoic heroes don't represent his full repertoire.
***1/2