Tagline: I was 27 years old the first time I died.
The Jacket movie storyline. A psychological thriller about a military veteran who returns to his native Vermont suffering from bouts of amnesia. When he is accused of murder and lands in an asylum, a well-meaning doctor puts him on a heavy course of experimental drugs, restrains him in a jacket-like device, and locks him away in a body drawer of the basement morgue. The process sends him on a journey into the future, where he can foresee his death (but not who did it or how) in four day’s time. Now the only question that matters is: can the woman he meets in the future save him?
1991: Jack Starks, a U.S. Marine Sergeant serving in the Persian Gulf War, receives a near-fatal gunshot wound to the head. Although he recovers, the incident leaves him with shock-related amnesia. After his release, with nowhere to go, Starks, who has no relatives, returns to his native Vermont.
Nine months later, hitchhiking along a snowbound Vermont highway, Starks encounters a broken down pick-up truck. The driver, a drunken, disoriented mother named Jean, and her eight-year-old daughter, Jackie, are stranded at the roadside. With Jean too drunk to speak with him, Starks approaches Jackie and offers his help and gets the truck started. Starks continues hitchhiking, and is picked up by a station wagon driven by a young man headed for the Canadian border. Shortly afterward, the car is pulled over by the police and Starks blacks out. When he awakens, he finds himself on trial for murder in a small town court.
Found not guilty by reason of insanity, Starks is committed to Alpine Grove, a state institution for the criminally insane. There a staff physician, Dr. Becker subjects Starks to a jarring experimental treatment involving mind-altering drugs and claustrophobic physical restraint. Once medicated, Starks is wrapped in jacket-like restraints and left alone for hours at a time in a corpse drawer located in the hospital’s basement morgue.
And in the drawer, in the dark and under the influence, Starks initially experiences flickers of memory from the war and the shooting of the police officer. Under this regimen, he begins putting together bits of his past and tries to make sense of his circumstances. The past gives way to the future when he is suddenly transported to a diner in Vermont where he meets Jackie, a waitress who takes pity on him and tries to help him find a place to sleep for the night. It is Christmas Eve, and all of the local homeless shelters are full, so Jackie allows Starks to sleep on her couch. In these hours, Starks begins to realize that the drawer he’s been confined to is the secret to his recovery and that his future and well-being lie in the hands of the girl he’s just met.
The Jacket is a 2005 American psychological thriller/horror film directed by John Maybury that is partly based on the Jack London novel of the same name (published in the US as The Star Rover).[1] Massy Tadjedin wrote the screenplay based on a story by Tom Bleecker and Marc Rocco. The original music score is composed by Roger Eno and the cinematography is by Peter Deming.
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.
Continue Reading and View the Theatrical Trailer
The Jacket (2005)
Directed by: John Maybury
Starring: Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley, Kris Kristofferson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kelly Lynch, Daniel Craig, Steven Mackintosh, Mackenzie Phillips, Laura Marano, Richard Dillane
Screenplay by: Tom Bleecker, Marc Rocco
Production Design by: Alan MacDonald
Cinematography by: Peter Deming
Film Editing by: Emma E. Hickox
Costume Design by: Doug Hall
Set Decoration by: Liz Griffiths
Art Direction by: Isabelle Guay, Mags Horspool, Jean-Pierre Paquet, Caireen Todd
Music by: Brian Eno
MPAA Rating: R for violence, language and brief sexuality / nudity.
Distributed by: Warner Independent
Release Date: March 4, 2005
Views: 122
