An Analysis of the film The Jacket (2005)

An Analysis of the film The Jacket (2005)

The movie kicks off with the main character, Jack Starks, being a soldier in the ongoing Gulf War (1991). Jack’s voice informs us that he was a 27 year old man when he passed away, the first time. He was attacked by a very young boy, while in combat duty, and shot in the head with a shotgun. The film takes us forward by a year, where we see Jack walking alone on a snowy road. He walks into a pick-up truck, that has broken down, with a mother (Jean Price) who visibly under the influence of alcohol and her little girl of about ten years old. Jean is probably too drunk to understand whatever is going on, and we can see her stumbling in the snow while vomiting from the alcohol. Her young daughter is delighted to talk to Jack, and he offers to try fixing their truck. The little girl is inquisitive, asking about Jack’s army tags, and even borrowing them. Jack gives them to her, and after he tries fixing the engine, the girl starts the truck. Jean soon recovers her sanity and is enraged on seeing Jack close to her daughter. She decides that Jack must have been a bad person (some kind of pervert), even though the young girl insists that he had fixed their truck. Jean takes the girl into the truck and drives off.

Jack proceeds with his walk, getting later on picked up by a car a few miles from the Canadian border. Jack and the man who picks him up are later pulled over by a police officer. The occurrences that ensue are not shown to us, as the film takes us forward to the trial of Jack. Apparently, he is on trial for killing the police officer who had pulled them over. He, however, is not able to recall anything from the day he committed the murder, except the encounter with Jean and her daughter. The authorities are unable to trace the two, and that information is, therefore, unjustifiable. It is in this trial where Jack is found not guilty of murder, on insanity grounds, and is sent to an asylum (managed by Dr. Thomas Becker). The doctor uses unofficial methods of treating patients at the facility. On one night, Dr. Becker pumps Jack’s body with many drugs, binds him in a jacket and places him in a morgue drawer for very long periods of time. The film‘s main focus is on the events that follow that night. The long episodes with his senses absent result in flushes that take him to his past and the circumstances leading to him being incarcerated. Later on, he finds himself transported to the future, in 2007, where he meets a grown-up Jackie (the young girl he had helped fix her mother’s truck). He even sees the day of his death, only a few days from the time he was coming from. Jack then strives to understand and uncover the mystery of how he dies and tries to save himself from Dr. Becker, with the help of Dr. Lorenson (who does not support the methods used by Dr. Becker) and Jackie.

The Jacket brings forth the atmosphere of the normal horror movies, even though the not so well lit war scenes portray very little. I would analyze it as a remake of other time travel films such as 12 Monkeys and the Altered States. The Gulf war and Jack’s involvement in it have no much bearing on the film, as they only serve to show where he got the head injury. Their impact is not quite significant to the storyline of the film. In 12 Monkeys, time travel is plot driven, as the scientists had a reason for sending the character through time travel. However, in The Jacket, time travel is an unprecedented effect of the treatment given by Dr. Becker.

Jack’s trips into his future enable him to acquire information about his life, which is seemingly in a loop. For example, he gets information in the year 2007, from Dr. Lorenson, information that apparently was given to her in 1992. He then travels back to the present to give her the same information, so as to complete the loop. Another instance is when Jack apparently confronts Dr. Becker in the year 2007, attempting to understand how he ‘died’. This results in his discovery of information that he and Dr. Lorenson can use to save him, at the present time. This instances of traveling back and forth to fish out information to be used in the present results in very confusing instances in the film, for any viewer.

The film ends with an expected turn of events: Jack is seen to have discontinued the loop, saving Jackie and himself from the fate that was to befall them earlier. The Jacket is an interesting film to watch. I would, however, not really recommend it to anyone, as there are better time travel films in the current film industry.