The Jacket (2005)

The Jacket has a pretty good cast led by Adrien Brody with Keira Knightly, Kris Kristofferson, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Daniel Craig rounding out.  Adrien Brody is institutionalized for being "crazy" and ends up pushing the beliefs of the staff to the limits.  The Jacket is suspenseful yet not scary (so don't worry about that), thrilling, entertaining and even heartwarming at times.  The Jacket also adds another notch to my new found love of independent films, as it was one of the top Sundance Film Festival picks of 2005.

Here is another film that is very tough to describe without giving anything away, so lets just say it is an amazing concept that is well worth the watch.  The script was very solid for a film that could have left many holes very easily.  I will say that I really didn't figure out what was going on until about half way into the movie.  There are so many parts that have you wondering what is going on, and they are all done beautifully.

Acting was absolutely amazing.  I am becoming more and more a Brody fan.  Just like the last film I reviewed of his, The Experiment, Brody pulled out a no holes barred performance.  Keira gave one of my favorite performances of hers, digging deep and doing a character far from her norm.  Kristofferson performed great as usual, with a very eery character that takes most of the film to finally understand.  I have not seen very many films of Daniel Craig's, but his character and acting was completely different than his last reviewed film Defiance.  I would say his performance in this film was superior because it seems as if it were a much harder role for him to play.

Filming had some very unique moments in this film.  The beginning was very reminiscent of a war movie.  I was wondering where it was going for a while, but it turned out it was not a war film and I think it would have spoiled the film to have more of the war scenes included.  The scenes in the mortuary were filmed very well also, with the script keeping pace and the combo making you wonder what really was going on.

I ended up glued for most of the movie because it was a very unique concept, filmed and acted very well and kept me very involved.  The plot twisted and turned and kept throwing new things at me every time I thought I had a bit of it figured out.  I am giving The Jacket a 4 star rating for these reasons.  I wish I could tell you more about it without giving so much away, but let me just say that you really should see this film.  Well, ciao for now and see you for the next review!