Jack Starks (Adrien Brody) barely survives his injuries from the 91 Gulf War and suffers from memory problems. A year later, he's drifting through Vermont where he encounters a drunken Jean Price (Kelly Lynch) and her sweet daughter Jackie (Laura Marano). He gets picked up by a Stranger (Brad Renfro) and they get stopped by a cop. The cop ends up dead and Jack is found not guilty by reason of insanity. In the asylum, Dr. Thomas Becker (Kris Kristofferson) puts him in a straitjacket and a morgue drawer where he starts to have visions. Fellow patient Rudy Mackenzie (Daniel Craig) tried to kill his wife. While placed in the jacket, he finds himself in the future talking to a grown up drunken Jackie Price (Keira Knightley). She tells him that Jack Starks is dead found on New Year's Day 1993. Only Dr. Lorenson (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is willing to help.

This is an interesting idea but the movie is done without much tension. This could be a dark horror but director John Maybury doesn't have the sensibilities. It's a slow moving movie without many thrills. It struggles for any excitement. The idea is there but the movie lacks too much. This movie may as well put the audience in a straitjacket and put them in a drawer.

In 1991, in Iraq, the military Jack Starks (Adrien Brody) is shot in the head and presumed dead. When he blinks his eyes in the morgue, the doctor is called. One year later, after being discharged from the army, while hitchhiking in a road in Vermont having amnesia problem, he helps a drunken woman, Jean Price (Kelly Lynch),and her daughter, Jackie Price, fixing their car. Later, he gets a lift, but the driver is stopped by the police and kills the policeman with three shots. Jack is also shot in the head and incriminated by the real killer, who leaves his gun close to the fainted Jack. He goes to court and is sentenced to the mental institution Alpine Grove for insane criminals. Jack becomes the experiment of Dr. Thomas Becker (Kris Kristofferson),who drugs and dresses him with a jacket and locks him in a drawer for corpses in the morgue. While locked, Jack travels to 2007, where he meets a grown-up Jackie Price (Keira Knightley) and they fall in love for each other. Jack envisions that the only exit from the institution is though the jacket.

"The Jacket" is an intriguing movie, with a conclusion open to interpretations. Unfortunately, the idea is not original, and actually it is very similar to Adrien Lyne's "Jacob's Ladder". In the Extras of the DVD, there are three alternative ends, and I believe the director did not use any of them trying to avoid a total rip-off of "Jacob's Ladder". In spite of the plagiarized story, I liked this movie, mostly because of the excellent actor Adrien Brody and the gorgeous Keira Knightley, who has also a great performance and chemistry with the lead actor. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Camisa de Força" ("Jacket")

An intriguing time travel drama with an unusual and rewarding storyline. There are shades of THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT here, as Adrien Brody's Gulf War veteran finds himself at the mercy of dodgy doctor Kris Kristofferson and undergoing some bizarre out-of-body experiences. THE JACKET neatly sidesteps cliché for the majority of its running time, delivering a TWILIGHT ZONE-type story and effectively running it to feature length.

Brody seems completely at home in his role as the film's protagonist and he soon gets us on side. Keira Knightley's cast against type as a damaged, boozy American and boy, is she good. Kristofferson's crusty doc is another ace up the film's sleeve, and watch out for a kooky Daniel Craig in an almost unrecognisable supporting role. This unusual film Is one that's difficult to pigeonhole, and it doesn't always make sense, but come the ambiguous ending I found the intricacies of the plot had paid off nicely.