| Plot |
| When you put on The Jacket, prepare for a head-trip into fragmented reality. Coproducer Steven Soderbergh might have fared better with this mind-bender than British director John Maybury (who indulges an excess of heavy-handed "style"), but it's intriguing enough to hold your attention as Gulf War veteran Jack Starks (Adrian Brody) sustains a head-wound that results in amnesia and fragmented timelines. One involves Jack's apparent killing of a policeman, after which he's institutionalized and subjected to straight-jacketed experiments in sensory isolation (with Kris Kristofferson as the doctor in charge); the other is a possible future involving a nihilistic waitress (Keira Knightley) with connections to his past, and the discovery that Jack will die in four days if he can't solve the brain-teasing puzzle he's fallen into. The Jacket aspires to the cleverness of Memento and falls short of that target, but Brody gives this exercise in desperate disorientation a certain gravitas that keeps you watching as his tormenting visions begin to unravel. Jennifer Jason Leigh, Brad Renfro and Kelly Lynch make the most of their small supporting roles. --Jeff Shannon |
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