Time Travel Movie Fest: The Jacket

2005 time travel movie

Rating: 13/20

Plot: A Gulf War and head-wound veteran discovers a very roundabout way to get laid. Obviously, it's based on a Jack London story.

See, that plot synopsis is pretty funny if you've seen the movie. It made me laugh anyway.

There are two people with the initials K.K. in this movie, and one of them is extraordinarily pretty while the other is not. This is the second time travel movie featuring Kris Kristofferson, the pretty one, that I've seen during my popular Time Travel Movie Fest. At this stage in his career, he's the type of actor who doesn't even need lines. He just needs that face, a face with a lifetime of remorse hidden beneath the wrinkles. I just always like seeing Kristofferson's face. Kiera Knightley must have filmed her parts in between Pirate movies. It seems like a different character for her since the movie didn't take place a century and a half ago. Daniel Craig's also got a small role playing a paranoiac who talks about the Organization for the Organized. In a way, I kind of wished that character was more important. Jennifer Jason Leigh is her usual inconspicuous self. Adrien Brody has to carry this thing, and he sometimes is just a little off. There's a range of emotions, probably too many, and some of his dialogue is really goofy. Because of his performance, I kind of figured this was heading for a big Shammalammadingdongian reveal, but apparently his performance was just not very good instead.

I liked the story here, and a time travel story where a guy travels into the future, gets information that helps him in the present, and then changes that future is interesting although I'm never sure how it all works. And naturally, there are paradoxes. A feel-good (depending on your interpretation) denouement, one messed up by a "How much time do we have?" line that nearly sinks the entire film, is satisfying for the most part, and it's refreshing to see a character exist as unselfishly as Brody's character does in this. There's never even an attempt to explain why the character can suddenly travel in time unless I just missed it, but if you just go with it, the narrative isn't all that bad. Some weirdo twitchy special effects kind of nauseated me after a while though.

Brian Eno scored this movie and did it about as passively as you'd guess he would. It also had Iggy Pop and somebody named Andy Tubman and the Jane Doe's during the credits.

Here's a picture of Kris Krisofferson without a shirt:

Oh, there's film version of the Jack London story from 1920 called The Star Rover. Kris Kristofferson might be in that one, too. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I can find it, but I'd love to compare the two.