The Jacket

USA / Germany, 2005. Directed by John Maybury. Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley, Kris Kristofferson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kelly Lynch, Brad Renfro, Daniel Craig.

How do I describe this movie? Psychological thriller? Sci-fi? Horror? Contemplative piece on the meaning of life? It has elements of all of these, which perhaps explains my difficulty with it. A Gulf War soldier (Brody) is shot when he lets down his guard. Initially thought to be dead he miraculously comes back to life. His voice-over tells us: “I was 27 the first time I died”. In a series of brief episodes we see him convicted of a murder he didn’t commit and incarcerated in a secure hospital for the criminally insane where he becomes the object of a mad doctor’s (Kristofferson) experiments. The story then develops into a time-travel saga, one of those tales where the protagonist keeps making leaps forwards and backwards to try to change the future and right wrongs etc. It has a slightly arty feel to it, which is no surprise from this director, but for me it still feels like an expanded episode of The Twilight Zone. Nothing wrong with that I guess, but I had the impression I was supposed to engage with it on a higher level than that, something I failed to do. It’s solidly made, the acting’s excellent (Brody’s mournful persona is just right here) and the scenes in the hospital are shot in suitably subdued colours, nicely contrasting with those set in the future. Keira Knightley as Brody’s girlfriend – a key player in the story – excels in a role that requires some skill in its execution, but Daniel Craig fares less well, in a small role which seems superfluous. Satisfactory if you’re happy to suspend your disbelief and just go with it.