The Jacket
cast: Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley
The good: Adrien Brody's acting
The bad: disappoints beyond measure
Movies with a great premise but with poor execution greatly breaks my heart for when you get excited about the possibilities of storytelling, you end up getting just a grandmother tale.
The Jacket is about a soldier who nearly (or did he?) dies during the war and returns to the US only to be stricken with a bad dose of luck when he gets wrongfully acussed of murder. Fortunately, he escapes jail time on an insanity defense but gets sent into a mental hospital instead. In here, one of the doctors places him in a severely unorthodox method where he is put on a straight jacket and locked up in a morgue cabinet for a few hours. The interesting part is that he travels through time (or does he?) into the future and meets up with the girl (now a lady in keira) who he helped just before the murder incident he was accused of.
Interesting and intriguing to be sure but the elements just dont fall into place. Psychologically, adrien's character is clearly not insane although the director tries nonentheless to try to stir things up a bit. Sci-fi wise, the time travelling isnt explained nor even hinted at, it just happens. No clues aside from the aforementioned insanity clause which doesnt work because adrien is obviously not insane. Therefore, the movie is just suspenseful enough to hold you till the credits are rolling but doesnt make you think (well, actually it does because you'd be wandering what the hell is happenning) or flinch in your seats.
To add to the confusion, adrien experiences a sort of visual recounting of events that happened before because he is now an amnesiac which does nothing to heighten the tension but only serves to irritate with its length and terrorizing-to-my-ears sounds. All in all, The Jacket is a good project handed over to the wrong team. (2/5)
*Fun Fact: Keira Knightley is only 20 years old and sure doesnt look like it.
The good: Adrien Brody's acting
The bad: disappoints beyond measure
Movies with a great premise but with poor execution greatly breaks my heart for when you get excited about the possibilities of storytelling, you end up getting just a grandmother tale.
The Jacket is about a soldier who nearly (or did he?) dies during the war and returns to the US only to be stricken with a bad dose of luck when he gets wrongfully acussed of murder. Fortunately, he escapes jail time on an insanity defense but gets sent into a mental hospital instead. In here, one of the doctors places him in a severely unorthodox method where he is put on a straight jacket and locked up in a morgue cabinet for a few hours. The interesting part is that he travels through time (or does he?) into the future and meets up with the girl (now a lady in keira) who he helped just before the murder incident he was accused of.
Interesting and intriguing to be sure but the elements just dont fall into place. Psychologically, adrien's character is clearly not insane although the director tries nonentheless to try to stir things up a bit. Sci-fi wise, the time travelling isnt explained nor even hinted at, it just happens. No clues aside from the aforementioned insanity clause which doesnt work because adrien is obviously not insane. Therefore, the movie is just suspenseful enough to hold you till the credits are rolling but doesnt make you think (well, actually it does because you'd be wandering what the hell is happenning) or flinch in your seats.
To add to the confusion, adrien experiences a sort of visual recounting of events that happened before because he is now an amnesiac which does nothing to heighten the tension but only serves to irritate with its length and terrorizing-to-my-ears sounds. All in all, The Jacket is a good project handed over to the wrong team. (2/5)
*Fun Fact: Keira Knightley is only 20 years old and sure doesnt look like it.
posted by NaCl at Friday, April 29, 2005
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