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    The Jacket

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

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    Although "The Jacket" starts off as a sort of mental ward horror movie, it really isn't in the end. What starts off as the story of a man who is barely holding onto reality after being seriously injured in combat turns into a science fiction story that includes alternate realities and time travel. The change in pace and tone makes the movie fun to watch. It’s difficult and exciting to have a picture in which what happens next is completely unpredictable

    The plot is complex so bear with me for a bit. Jack (Adrien Brody) is a Gulf War veteran who suffers from amnesia due to a bullet wound to the head. When he is found unconscious at the scene of a crime, he is found not guilty for reasons of insanity but sent to a mental institution. There, he undergoes controversial treatment as he is injected with hallucinogens, strapped into a straight jacket and then placed in a coffin-like drawer. In these conditions he discovers that he is able to travel through time, 15 years into the future. There he meets a young friend of his, all grown-up (Keira Knightley as Jackie) The two of them must figure out what is happening to Jack in order to save him.

    What I enjoyed is that you can never really pinpoint what is going on with Jack until far into the movie. It's safe to assume that if you weren't crazy, getting tied-up in a straight jacket and stuffed in a tiny locker for hours on end might drive you completely out of your mind. Does that make the time travel segments real, or a series of hallucinations? You hope Knightley is real because she and Brody have terrific chemistry. They play off each other well but their relationship is an uneasy one. Neither really trust each other and you're always curious to see how Jack will influence her, or vice versa. What will come of their interactions when it comes to the time travel? The other side characters are also interesting and well written. Even the "bad guy", Kris Kristofferson as Dr. Thomas Becker doesn't feel like a stereotypical mad scientist. He’s as a man who really believes his treatment will help people and he just needs the right subject to prove his theory. I actually found this to be more frightening. It would be really easy for Jack to be pulled out of a situation if a clearly sadistic lunatic was mistreating him, but the intentions are good here.

    If you're a fan of science fiction this will be a nice change from the typical movies with flying cars, aliens and cyborgs. It's science fiction that plays more with the human element than the fantastical one. I recommend “The Jacket” more for that aspect than for the horror, which are good but not on the same level as the time travel stuff. There are still a lot of good things going in "The Jacket". I found it to be a pleasant surprise, much smarter than what I expected from the initial 15 minutes of the film. (On DVD, April 14, 2013)

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    adamwatchesmovies@  25.3.2016 age: 26-35 2,867 reviews

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