A talented cast gets lost in the confusion that is this whirling dervish of a motion picture from director John Maybury (“Love is the Devil”). “The Jacket,” which was scripted by Massy Tadjedin, challenges viewers to execute such strenuous mental gymnastics, it is inevitable most will wind up completely spent by the midway point. The studio is hyping the film as a “gothic thriller,” but instead it’s a confounding mishmash of genres that draws inspiration from the likes of the similarly labored head trip “The Butterfly Effect,” only without the welcome comic relief Ashton Kutcher provided, albeit unintentionally, in that inexplicably profitable venture.
Adrien Brody plays Jack Starks, a Gulf War veteran who survives a gunshot wound to the head and is set adrift in Vermont with severe recurring amnesia. While hitchhiking along a remote highway one snowy winter’s day in 1992, Jack encounters a besotted young mother and her 8-year-old daughter stranded by the side of the road. He fixes their truck and connects with the charming little girl, Jackie, in a way her mother finds disagreeable enough to leave poor Jack in the cold. He then gets a lift from a shifty fellow headed for the Canadian border, loses consciousness during a police stop, and awakens to find himself accused of murdering a cop. Found not guilty by reason of insanity, Jack is committed to an institution under the care of a mad scientist named Dr. Becker (a creepy Kris Kristofferson) who subjects him to a brutal experimental treatment involving mind-altering drugs and physical restraint inside a corpse drawer.
That claustrophobic chamber is the portal Maybury misuses to propel his tortured hero back and forth through time to discover what really happened in the past, along with what might be in the future: The year 2007, to be exact. There, Jack reconnects with Jackie, who’s grown up (into Keira Knightley) emulating the wasted life of her dead mom. Jennifer Jason Leigh is also in the mix in an underdeveloped role as a psych ward doc who tries to save Jack. The actors give it their all intrepidly wading through the muddle, and there’s an effectively gloomy mien to the film courtesy of cinematographer Peter Deming (“Lost Highway,” “Mulholland Drive”). But trying to get comfortable inside such a ruffled narrative is difficult, and the primary reason why “The Jacket” doesn’t fit very well. (Rated R for violence, language and brief sexuality/nudity. Running Time: 103 minutes.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 4, 2005. Read the original PDF.