Title: The Jacket (2005)
Director: John Maybury
Actors: Keira Knightley, Adrien Brody, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kris Kristofferson.

Yes, another Keira movie. No, I'm NOT obsessed with her. I think she is an amazing and underrated actress. She doesn't seem to be causing drama like most of the actors her age. Okay, and maybe I'm a little obsessed.

The Jacket is one of those little independent gems that nobody watches, but should. The story is about Jack Starks, a Gulf War veteran, who gets sent to a mental institution. He has been suspected of murdering a police officer, but we, the viewers, have seen that it wasn't him, who killed the officer but another man.

'Experts' say that he suffers from a post-war stress syndrome and that is why he doesn't get sent to jail, but to the institution. The experts don't believe he met a young girl and her mother, before the shooting. They say he fabricated the story and he is not able to see the difference between reality and is own fabrications.

In the institution a man named Dr. Becker uses a cruel method to 'monitor his patients'. He believes that what is broken already, can't be damaged. He puts them into a straight jacket and then puts them into a morgue drawer. He leaves them there for a certain period of time.

When he puts Jack in there, he gets flashes from his past: the war in Iraq and the shooting. But also other flashes he can't really understand. When he gets put in there a second time he meets a waitress on Christmas eve. She takes him home and when she passes out on the couch from the booze, he starts snooping around. He finds dog tags that say: Jack Starks. He realizes she is the young girl, named Jackie, he met that day. He gave her his dogtags. He wakes her up and tells her. She doesn't believe him and tells him Jack Starks is dead, he died in 1992, and that it's the year 2007. Jackie kicks him out of the house.

He soon realizes he can see the future when he's in the drawer and finds out that he is going to die by a blow to the head, with a blunt object. He keeps provoking Dr. Becker to get him to put him in the drawer. He keeps meeting Jackie in the future and after she has done some research she believes him. She wants to help him find out what really happened in the institution.

This is one of those movies that are complicated and stick with you a couple of days. The movie is quite experimental, although not as experimental as Domino. The movie opens with Gulf War material and I have heard that it was real news material. The flashes are beautifully done as well. They appear in his eyes in full close-up, very original. The bright snowy landscape is a great contrast to the darkness of the drawer.

The ending is a bit of an anti-climax, but i think they did that on purpose. It is such an odd story and if they had given it an odd ending as well,l it would have gotten predictable. It works really well this way and gives the movie a bit of twist.

Keira's performance is, once again, great. She draws you right into the story. The only thing i didn't like about it was her horrible American accent. By that I mean the fact that she was speaking in an American accent, not her sexy English accent, and not that her accent sounded fake. It sounded American to me, but I'm not an expert on accents. Every now and then you could hear a bit of her own accent in it, but she corrected herself. As for the lowness of her voice, a lot of people didn't like it, but in the extras it is said that they did that on purpose. This is a girl who has had a tough life. She has lost her mom at a very young age, smokes like a chimney and is an alcoholic.

Adrien Brody is fantastic as Jack. He, too, draws you right into the story. He has this sad look about him, which works wonderfully in this movie. The character possess a certain sadness, because no one believes him and he really doesn't belong there.

Verdict: Watch it, watch it, watch it, especially if you like Keira, Adrien and/or crazy independent films I give it a 8.5/10

P.S. Keira once again has the best quote in the movie: "There's nothing to steal, but don't be a jerk and steal something anyway."