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Jacket, The
EMAILPRINTWarner Independent Pictures

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 38 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Massy Tadjedin
Tom Bleecker (story)
Marc Rocco (story)
Directed by: John Maybury
Release Date:
Theatrical: March 4, 2005
DVD: June 21, 2005
Running Time: 102 minutes, Color
Origin: USA / UK
Summary
RATING: R for violence, language and brief sexuality/nudity
Starring Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley, Kris Kristofferson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kelly Lynch, Brad Renfro, Daniel Craig, and Jason Lewis
This mind-bending drama melds elements of a thriller, romance, murder mystery and time-travel fantasy. (Warner Independent Pictures)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The Hollywood Reporter Duane Byrge
Admittedly, The Jacket is not likely to be everyone's cup of tea, but filmmaker John Maybury has forged a mesmerizing mindblower.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
The result is what you might call a mass-audience art film. It doesn't entirely succeed, but it's certainly a change from today's standard mysteries and horror movies.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Kevin Williams
A gripping drama that will leave thoughtful cinemagoers wrestling with basic Big Questions.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
This movie probably falls within the purview of a "love it/hate it" subgenre of the psychological thriller.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Director John Maybury has a feel for shock rhythms, and he's skillful at keeping you guessing, but after a while you want your questions to cohere into compelling answers, and in The Jacket they don't, quite.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Adrien Brody is cornering the market on roles where he's hunted, haunted and under-nourished.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
The Jacket is a confused attempt at headiness that feels like a poor man's "Memento."
Read Full Review >Empire Kim Newman
A gripping, affecting, strange movie -- but oddly, it's just like too many other gripping, affecting, strange movies we've seen recently.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
Intermittently compelling but unavoidably improbable.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
This kind of gloomy razzle-dazzle isn't everyone's cup of mind-altering tea, but strong performances make it worth the effort to keep the time-tripping shenanigans straight until the surprisingly satisfying payoff.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Chuck Wilson
The director's work is suitably unnerving, but leaves one feeling beaten senseless by reel two. When the hero's well-earned moment of clarity finally arrives, most will likely be too numbed out to care, despite the best efforts of Brody, an actor too vividly alive to be wasting his time playing dead.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
Maybury's attempt at a more mainstream movie is really just a simple love story cloaked in a lot of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Eric Campos
You'll either walk away with a headache,or praising filmmaker John Maybury for his unique narrative...and it is unique, but in my eyes, it's also a big giant mess.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Though shot for maximum moodiness by the gifted Peter Deming ("Mulholland Drive"), the movie straps you in for a head trip that promises hallucinatory wonders but delivers the same old Hollywood formula with sugar on top.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
It draws you into its grim and mysterious world through the first half of the movie, then falls apart like a house of cards in a hurricane.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
It's pretty stupid, although it's never exactly boring.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
The Jacket is both a genre movie and a symptom, a gothic treatment of Gulf War syndrome.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
You can sense an impulse toward a better film, and Adrien Brody and Keira Knightley certainly take it seriously, but the time-travel whiplash effect sets in, and it becomes, as so many time travel movies do, an exercise in early entrances, late exits, futile regrets.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Memo to screenwriters cranking out murky existential thrillers: Do not have various characters repeat on several occasions: "I know this doesn't make any sense."
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
Doesn't really go anywhere or amount to anything - a fatal flaw in a time-travel movie designed not only to keep you guessing, but to build genuine suspense as well.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
The acting makes the difference, and in Jacket it rises above the needs of the material.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
Begins too cruelly and ends too sappily but holds you somewhere between the two extremes until the semisweet finale.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Visually, The Jacket has a lot of flash, but it hardly compensates for the fuzzy story.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Maybury's art-world talents don't include storytelling, and his visceral bursts of fast editing and extreme close-ups don't yield any full-blown characters, narrative, or political vision.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
This movie is terribly silly, but it's not completely terrible.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson
Still, the central mystery remains effective and compelling for most of the film, until it becomes clear that it's all image and no intent.
Read Full Review >Variety Scott Foundas
A movie as lacking in personality as its amnesiac protagonist.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Dennis Lim
A disappointing nosedive into the mainstream for John Maybury, the Derek Jarman acolyte who transitioned successfully from experimental work to features with 1998's hallucinatory Francis Bacon biopic "Love Is the Devil."
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
The characters are so flat and the dialogue so dull you expect it to be one of those movies whose existence is justified by a big final twist. But it's three days after the screening, and still no twist. Maybe it's coming in the mail?
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
If claustrophobia's your style, The Jacket is a perfect fit.
Washington Post Desson Thomson
The Jacket is doing nothing but sampling elements of "Jacob's Ladder," "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Memento" without offering more than hackneyed solutions, including a rather cheesy conclusion.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer
[Brody's] mannered performance helps downgrade this picture from a middling sci-fi film to a bad, borderline-camp sci-fi film.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
As bad movies go, The Jacket belongs to a relatively rare but extremely intriguing/irritating genus.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
In this case, the adage would go something like "material, material, material," also known as the Nicolas Cage Rule: Good acting can't overcome bad taste.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 38 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Michael D. gave it a4:
This movie was exceptionally bad. Though the acting was passable (especially Kris Kristofferson) the unbelievability of the plot was too much to bear. Time travel from mind drugs? Some things can be changed in the past and some things can't? There's no way of determining it? The "avant-garde" aspects were just a reminder of why a lot of people can't stand avant-garde. It makes no sense. But not in an interesting way, just a senseless way. The only reason I didn't give it a zero is because of the credits song by Roger Eno.
Adam M. gave it a10:
A surprisingly intelligent and well-executed film!
Mark A. gave it a9:
I found the directing and cinematography to be top notch. A riveting film!
Nathan gave it a0:
This movie sucked! Keira Knightley's acting and accent was the worst part. It's one of the worst movies that I've seen in my life.
Frank O. gave it a7:
Innovative flick with outstanding cast but felt like I have seen this plot before.
vanvera gave it a4:
Too much confused. just a little bit shocking view. in any sense.
Marco M. gave it a9:
Absolutely mind-blowing! It should definitely reach top 10 best of this year, I cannot believe it only received a “44” I think that’s extremely underrated. This film makes “The Butterfly Effect” look like one long joke! Adrien Brody gives a great performance that should not disappoint you. Recommend it to anyone who is a fan of such films as “Memento” or “Donnie Darko”.
