A clever sci-fi thriller directed by John Maybury that pays homage to both 12 MONKEYS and JACOB'S LADDER. Jack Starks is a soldier fighting in the Persian Gulf who gets shot in the head by a young, frightened kid. He returns to life as he's about to be pronounced dead only and resumes his life in the States after the was is over. One day, he has two fateful encounters that will mark his life from then on: a drunken mother and her young daughter whose car he fixes, and a man who picks him up only to be later stopped by a state trooper. Caught and sent to a state mental facility, he gets an abusive form of shock treatment with an experimental drug that allows him to re-visit his past, his future, and enable to change and re-shape his own life.

THE JACKET may not have the much of the whimsical imagery and multiple, confusing story lines of 12 MONKEYS and the sense of impending horror present in JACOB'S LADDER, but its sparse images and the sense of cold, realistic despair sets it aside in its own right and allow for the more sci-fi elements to come through believably. This mental facility is a little closer to the one in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, with Kris Kristofferson playing a male counterpart to Louise Fletcher's Nurse Ratched. Daniel Craig has a small part as a lunatic who may or not have murdered his own wife and knows about this "jacket" where patients are sent to face their own "corrective reassignment". Keira Knightley plays a dual role, in which for the most of the movie, her character comes off as harsh, bitter, but once a warning is taken into consideration, she reintroduces herself to Brody as a compassionate, friendly person. Hers is the type of role that Jennifer Jason Leigh would have had a field day with, but Jason Leigh comes off well as a well-meaning doctor who wants to help Brody.

THE JACKET is a pretty good entry in the time-traveling genre, but in essence, all it is is a murder mystery with sci-fi overtones. The problem with the movie is that the issue of did-he/didn't he never gets resolved the way it should be; hence, the character of Jack Starks remains positioned in this Kafkaesque place where he is perpetually the victim of a crime he did not commit. Other minor points, such as a comeuppance for Dr. Becker, do not happen in a satisfactory way, but even then it still is an entertaining watch, especially when there aren't many movies today that can tackle the issue of time-bending without insulting the audience or selling out.

First off, this film is not for everyone. It does, however, seem to delineate an emerging and exciting trend in contemporary film making whereby directors are becoming increasingly enamored with these sorts of dark, brooding, almost dreamscape-like and melodramatic thrillers which defy archetypal and conventional narrative formats. Think of the "The Machinist" and work your way backwards to "Vanilla Sky", or even as far back as 1990's "Jacob's Ladder" as one other reviewer accurately suggested.

To this end, "The Jacket" represents the apotheosis of this rising genre, and is both an artistic psychological thriller, as well as what you might call a metaphysical tragedy, and easily envelopes the viewer into its morose and sterile world replete with dreary snow scapes, perpetual grey skies and faces, muted and washed out colours, institutional isolation, and the angst of working class loners. The film's imagery and the pace of the story and script immediately command one's attention from the outset and the film is unrelenting in both its tension and gumption. Because of this, despite the story's meandering timeline and lack of feasible explanations for the protagonist's "visions", the viewer is still to an extent able to believe what they're seeing. Because the film takes itself so seriously, and actually pulls it off, the viewer then buying into the fantasy of the story becomes far more palatable than it does in other misguided attempts at this same sort of risky and artsy storytelling ie: "The Butterfly Effect".

This is an ambitious film which taps into both the romanticism and pain of our dreams and our memories, and how they both act upon us, and cause us to act upon them. It examines what is real versus perceived, the fragility of life, how each persons's life effects others, even passing strangers, and the sovereignty of the self and the mind. The film features outstanding performances from just about everyone on screen, particularly Brody as the hapless and tortured Jack Starks, and Kristofferson as the morally ambiguous and equally tortured Dr. Becker.

Despite the big names on the marquee, however, this, as previously mentioned, is not a cut and dry "popcorn flick" and will leave many people bewildered. It is for these people that the "Butterfly Effect" was made first, and now with them out of the way, the timing for a film of this caliber which deals with these issues properly is appropriate. "The Jacket" is a trippy and entertaining yet still very intelligent film which asks only that you check your preconceptions and logical rectitude at the door. By doing so, you'll find the imagination of this film is fact more real than you might have expected.