The Jacket (2005)

You won't be disappointed!

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Sign of the times that we live in that Hollywood can turn any subject into formulaic banality, even when handed an example of pure brilliance from another century.

I've watched this movie out of desperation, as I've found nothing better I haven't seen before.While it starts off boring, slowly it starts to get better, still fails to redeem itself. It was released in 2005, and I suspect it did not age well. There have been better thrillers about similar things - even before (like The Butterfly Effect or Frequency).The main problem is that this movie is not smart, the main character does nothing to change his own fate (which he inadvertently does just to make the movie more cliché), and does not even think about what is happening. I did not feel challenged to think, there were no surprises or brilliant ideas that the genre would demand.Adrien Brody does some very poor one-sided acting here and there, which I assume is fan service. The supporting actors are much more interesting, and deliver layered performances.The music, script and directing, meh, all mediocre. The special effects are not bad for the time, but they serve no real purpose.This could have been so much more if it dares to be philosophically challenging.

When you start a movie starring Adrien Brody, you know you're in for quite an experience. An actor like Daniel Day-Lewis or Al Pacino, Brody immerses himself in his work and always becomes quite believable in the character he is playing. His role in The Jacket was no different. This dark, gritty film from 2005, captures the essence of despair of a world Brody's character had already left.We first meet our star, Jack Starks (Adrien Brody) in a military hospital during the Gulf War. The soldier was shot and believed to have died, when the stunned doctors realize he is alive and needs further medical attention right away. Once he comes to, Jack navigates to his native Vermont, afflicted by bouts of amnesia. Hitchhiking to get around, Jack is picked up by a man who murders a police officer when he is pulled over while Jack is in the car. Jack is accused of murdering the police officer, and is sentenced to an institution for the criminally insane. Once admitted to the hospital, he unwillingly becomes a participant in a Doctor Thomas Becker's (Kris Kristofferson) experiments. The experiments have Jack laced into a heavy straightjacket in the drawer of the morgue. Throughout this "treatment", Jack gets flashbacks of the future and the effect is has on a little girl (Kiera Knightly) headed for a troubled life because of her alcoholic/drug addicted mother he meets while hitchhiking. When one flashback shows that he will die within the week, he engages in a race against time to save the girl and her mother.This film was not my cup of tea, as the saying goes. The character development seemed minimal, and when it was fleshed out, seemed as if nothing good had ever happened in these people's lives. The film was shot in a gritty, dark way, which fit the story line; but was a little difficult to view as some scenes were difficult to discern due to the extreme darkness of the screen. Admittedly, I'm also not a huge fan of Adrien Brody's. His acting was wonderful in The Pianist, but I have just not been impressed with him since. So, granted, I am biased against the actor, although I'm always willing to be proved wrong, I just wasn't this time. The overly dark sets and lighting were detractors that were too difficult for me to overcome. The story was an interesting one, but perhaps could have been better developed or fleshed out. The Jacket had me hopeful, but in the end left me just wanting a better story out of it.Fans of Adrien Brody's will surely enjoy the film and its message which I thought to be escape. Even though the experiments were so intrusive and painful for Stark, he didn't want them to stop. He used the experiments as an escape. Maybe he wanted to help people; or maybe he just wanted to leave his own reality behind for a little while. Whatever the reason, Stark was anxious to escape. Unfortunately for the audience, poor casting and a convoluted film, made me want to escape while watching it. It's safe to say, I won't be visiting this film again, if I can help it, in this dimension or another.

The Jacket is another very, very classic and conventional sci-fi based thriller who relies on the usual tricks of the genre: identity search, time travel, alteration of future events... nothing particularly original and that is what mainly serves this unremarkable movie badly. The elements on which relies the scenario have all been used over and over again — and often better — in other productions: for example, some developments are a bit far-fetched, like the not so credible love story.It's a shame because the direction is good, as the rhythm, the intriguing atmosphere is coherent with the genre, but it's Adrien Brody's excellent performance, by the way an incredibly underrated actor, who illuminates the movie, as opposed to his partner Keira Knightley, always very linear.