In this psychological thriller, Adrian Brody does yet another wonderful job of bringing a character to life: Jack Starks a Gulf War veteran who miraculously survived a bullet to the head. After being sent back to the United States, we find him hitchhiking along the road where he stops to help a young girl and her drunken mother fix their car. After fixing their car, he gives the girl his dog tags, and they part ways. A man later picks him up, but they soon get pulled over by a cop.

The next thing we know, Brody’s character is on trial for the murder of the police officer who pulled him over. To complicate the situation, he has no memory of any part of it. He is found not guilty and is instead committed to a psychiatric facility. This is where the movie picks up and the story of The Jacket truly begins. Jack begins an experimental treatment from a doctor that is obviously a tad off.

With the treatment, Jack gets a glimpse of his past but soon realizes that he can move into the future as well. When he does this, he finds that the young girl who he had helped the day of the murder is now a grown woman. He confronts her about what happened that day, and she responds, “You can’t be Jack Starks, he died January 1st, 1993.” Jack realizes that this is only four days away from the date he started the treatment. The movie becomes a race to find out how he dies and what he can do to prevent his own death.

The movie may have an out-there storyline, but the actors handle it quite well. It has wonderful acting and fabulous camera work, which makes the film believable enough to make you forget you’re watching a movie, something many movies try to do but fail at. The twists and turns in this film are also handled quite well; they add more to the story rather then take it away, and they are not hard to follow, unlike typical films of this genre.

What is most enjoyable about this film is how smoothly it moves from one part to the next, and the attachment you develop for the characters in the movie. The dialog and the wonderful acting pulls the story along. Also, as a Kurt Vonnegut fan, the “Slaughterhouse Five” feel in some places of the movie added quite a bit to my enjoyment of this film. While I recommend reading the book in conjunction with seeing the movie, the film’s merits hold up enough on its own to warrant an hour and a half of your time.