The Jacket Movie

The Jacket
Rating:
Run Time: 102 min
MPAA Rating: R
Released: 2005
Directors: John Maybury
Genre/Type: Thriller
Psychological Thriller
Supernatural Thriller
Producers: George Clooney
Peter Guber
Steven Soderbergh
Plot Synopsis by Mark Deming
A troubled war veteran tries to unlock his memories of a terrible crime in this stylish thriller, the first American project for British filmmaker John Maybury. In 1991, Jack Starks (Adrien Brody) was an American soldier serving in the Persian Gulf when he was shot in the head; pronounced dead by a field surgeon, Starks somehow returned to life, though with no small number of psychological problems to show for his troubles. A year later, Starks is walking through the snowy Vermont wilderness when he discovers a woman whose truck has broken down, Jean (Kelly Lynch). Starks tries to help Jean and her young daughter, and later flags down a car for a ride into town; however, the car is being driven by a criminal on the run from the police (Brad Renfro), and not long after the car is cornered by police, Starks' memory goes blank. When he comes to, Jack is accused of killing a patrolman in the violent standoff that followed, and is told the woman, her daughter, and the criminal existed only in his imagination. Declared insane in his murder trial, Starks is sentenced to a mental institution run by Dr. Becker (Kris Kristofferson), who seems to believe that the more brutal the treatment, the better. As Starks suffers frequent beatings and long spells in a frozen locker, his mind drifts from his harrowing past into the future, where he visits with Jackie (Keira Knightley), who once was the young girl Starks tried to help. The Jacket also features Jennifer Jason Leigh as Dr. Lorenson, a compassionate doctor who tries to help Starks and his fellow patients.

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Women's jackets from Kitson cost between $128-$288. The $288 jacket is by Marc Jacobs. ChaCha on!
The Jacket is a psychological thriller. They said it's a thinking man's thriller, but it's about a Gulf War veteran who gets put into a mental institute and tortured. He wears a straight jacket, there you go.
While your coat should be comfortable, tuxedo jackets aren't made as athletic wear. In other words, you're not going to have as much maneuveribility as you would in your t-shirt. The shoulder pads should not stick out prominently past your ...

Cast

Actors Character Born
Adrien Brody Jack Starks Apr 14, 1973 in New York, NY
Keira Knightley Jackie Price Mar 26, 1985 in Teddington, London, England
Kris Kristofferson Dr. Becker Jun 22, 1936 in Brownsville, TX
Jennifer Jason Leigh Dr. Lorenson Feb 5, 1962 in Los Angeles, CA
Daniel Craig Mackenzie
Kelly Lynch Jean Jan 31, 1959 in Minneapolis, MN
Laura Marano Young Jackie
Brad Renfro Stranger Jul 25, 1982 in Knoxville, TN
Mackenzie Phillips Nurse Harding Nov 10, 1959 in Alexandria, VA
Brendan Coyle Damon
Steven Mackintosh Dr. Hopkins
Jason Lewis Police Officer Jun 25, 1971 in Newport Beach, CA
Jonah Lotan Intern

Back to the topReview

Review by Derek Armstrong
Relentlessly stylish, The Jacket is nonetheless a fairly standard whodunit about mental hospital abuse, the Gulf War, and time travel. That's a joke, but it's true that nothing feels quite new in this otherwise solid production -- which to be built from original parts, or at least parts that haven't been lumped together before. There's certainly enough in John Maybury's film to keep a viewer interested, particularly the flashy edits and sudden close-ups that approximate the henpecked delusions of Gulf vet Jack Starks (Adrien Brody). But Massy Tadjedin's script doesn't provide a sublime payoff for its foreboding plot details. One crucial episode never gets resolved, which is fine in the real world, but not so fine in the time travel genre, where even minor details typically have a divine purpose. Although it doesn't quite get there, The Jacket is worth watching for the strong performances of Brody and Keira Knightley. Brody gets the shell-shocked quivering down perfectly, playing a man caught in a purgatory between alertness and fugue, sanity and breakdown. The "treatments" he undergoes -- at the hands of a casually malevolent Kris Kristofferson -- are an eerie criticism of institutions whose corruption goes unchecked, because the patients are as likely to be raving conspiracy theorists as credible victims. Knightley, meanwhile, shows she's as comfortable in dark territory as she has been in her previous sunny roles. Despite heavy hitters George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh lending their cachet as producers, The Jacket slipped out of theaters after collecting only six million dollars at the box office.

The Jacket on TV

Zip Code: 10010 · Provider: Verizon Fios Queens-Digital (Fresh Meadows) Edit
Today , 5:20 AM ET · The Jacket  · Channel 341 · STARZP · Duration: 105 min.
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