The Jacket

For the 1915 Jack London novel published as "The Jacket" in England, see The Star Rover. For the Seinfeld episode, see The Jacket (Seinfeld).

The Jacket
Film poster
Directed by	John Maybury
Produced by	George Clooney Peter Guber Steven Soderbergh
Written by	Massy Tadjedin
Starring	Adrien Brody Keira Knightley Kris Kristofferson Jennifer Jason Leigh Kelly Lynch Brad Renfro Daniel Craig
Music by	Brian Eno
Cinematography	Peter Deming
Editing by	Emma E. Hickox
Distributed by	Warner Independent Pictures
Release date(s)	January 23, 2005 (2005-01-23) (Sundance) March 4, 2005 (2005-03-04)
Running time	103 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$28.5 million
Box office	$21,126,225

The Jacket is a 2005 psychological thriller film directed by John Maybury that is partly based on the Jack London novel of the same name, released in the US as The Star Rover. Massy Tadjedin wrote the screenplay based on a story by Tom Bleecker and Marc Rocco. The original music score is composed by Brian Eno and the cinematography is by Peter Deming.

Plot

After miraculously recovering from a bullet wound to the head, Gulf War veteran Jack Starks (Adrien Brody) returns to Vermont in 1992, suffering from periods of amnesia. While traveling, he sees a young girl, Jackie (Keira Knightley), and her mother in despair from a broken down truck, he helps them and moves on. A man driving along the same highway gives Jack a ride and they get pulled over by the police. Suddenly Starks is found on the deserted roadside with a dead policeman, the murder weapon, and a slug from the policeman's gun in Starks' body. Although he testifies there was someone else at the scene, his amnesia makes him unbelievable. Starks is found not guilty by reason of insanity, and is incarcerated in a mental institution.

Starks becomes subject to the experiments of Dr. Thomas Becker (Kris Kristofferson), a psychiatrist. In December 1992 Starks is injected with an experimental drug, bound in a straitjacket and placed in sensory deprivation within a morgue drawer. While in this condition, he is able to travel 15 years in the future. He meets an older version of Jackie at a roadside diner where she works because it is the only memory he can ever fully hold on to. While in the future, Jackie tells him that Jack Starks died on January 1st, 1993 and so he couldn't be who he says he is. After earning her trust, Starks goes back to the future numerous times to see her and together they try to figure out what causes the travesty.

With his time running out on January 1st, 1993, Starks writes a letter explaining Jackie's bleak future and takes it to her mother early that day, warning her that she will later orphan Jackie when she falls asleep with a cigarette and is burned to death. When he returns from delivering the letter, Starks slips on the ice and hits his head; bleeding profusely, he convinces the hospital workers to put him in the jacket one last time.

Starks returns to 2007, where Jackie has a better life than in the previous version of 2007. Reprising their first 2007 meeting, except this time, she's dressed in a nurse's uniform. She sees Starks standing in the snow and drives past him, but backs up when she notices his head wound. She stops and offers to take him to the hospital where she works. While in the car, Jackie receives a call from her mother -- still alive and well. They drive on, the screen fades to white, and a voice-over reveals that the link to the "previous" future is not lost when Jackie says "How much time do we have?" and the credits start to roll.

Cast

• Adrien Brody as Jack Starks
• Keira Knightley as Jackie Price
• Kris Kristofferson as Dr. Thomas Becker
• Jennifer Jason Leigh as Dr. Beth Lorenson
• Kelly Lynch as Jean Price
• Brad Renfro as The Stranger
• Daniel Craig as Rudy Mackenzie
• Steven Mackintosh as Dr. Hopkins
• Brendan Coyle as Damon
• Mackenzie Phillips as Nurse Hardling
• Laura Marano as Young Jackie
• Jason Lewis as Officer Harrison

Basis

The Jacket shares its title, and the idea of a person experiencing extra-corporeal time-travel while in an intolerably tight straitjacket, with a 1915 novel by Jack London. The novel was published in the United Kingdom as The Jacket and in the United States of America as The Star Rover. Director Maybury has said that the film is "loosely based on a true story that became a Jack London story." (The true story is that of Ed Morrell, who told London about San Quentin prison's inhumane use of tight straitjackets).

Reception

The Jacket opened on March 4, 2005, and grossed $2,723,682 on opening weekend, with a peak release of 1,331 theaters in the United States. The film went on to gross $6,303,762 domestically, for a total of $14,822,463 worldwide.

The Jacket garnered mixed reviews on release; the film has a 43% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 44% average critic rating on the aggregate reviews site Metacritic..

External links

• Official website
• The Jacket at the Internet Movie Database
• The Jacket at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Jacket at AllRovi