Don't forget to wear The Jacket in the morgue.

Trippy science fiction movie The Jacket tells the story of Jack Sparks, a gulf war veteran who is released from duty after surviving a shot to the head in 1991. After a year in rehabilitation he is back in the real world where he ends up wrongly accused of murder and sent to an asylum. Out of the frying pan and into the fire comes to mind...

Jack is surrounded by crazy people but the problem is he isn't one of them. He's an amnesiac trapped in Hell with a devilish psychiatric doctor wanting to use him for a strange experiment (if you can call pumping someone full of drugs, wrapping them up in a straitjacket and putting them in a morgue drawer that) that has killed other inmates before. The claustrophobia is intensified by close ups of Sparks (Brody) eyes and mouth as he panics in the closing darkness. The drugs and atmosphere set up a psychedelic trip of brightly flashing colours and disjointed fragments of memories in Jack's fractured mind before we dive into the future with Jack who ends up outside a greasy spoon in 2007. He is offered a lift from pouty, chin jutting Jackie (Knightley) who for the first half hour of the film seems to care more about using her lips suggestively than her ability to act. They're rubbed against bottles, her hands go in her mouth, her lips are consistently parted. Perhaps she is a mouth breather? Maybe we shouldn't judge so harshly.

Jackie has had a hard life. Her mother was an alcoholic who died in a bed of flames after passing out with a cigarette in her hand. She left Jackie alone to repeat her miserable existence. The thing is Jack already knows about this because he met Jackie in 1992. She was the little girl he met by the road on his way home from war whose Mum was lying inebriated in the snow because their car engine had frozen up. Jack had chatted kindly to the girl and given her his soldier dog tags which she still has. Jack finds the dog tags and explains his dilemma of time travel and insane asylums to a disbelieving and frankly freaked out Jackie who (pouting and squinting) tells poor Jack to leave. He has to go anyway, bitch, because his time in the morgue drawer is running out. Don't think Jackie boy was leaving because of you Jackie, you filthy drunk. That kind, caring, good with children Jack Sparks is too good for you anyway!

Jack's halitosis was too much for the nurse to bare.

Jack returns to the morgue and is pulled out of the drawer. The psychiatrist asks him to blink if he hears him. Jack blinks and the psychiatrist is impressed Jack hasn't passed out from being in there, deciding to up the dosage and time for the next stage of the experiment. What follows is a murder mystery romance as Jackie helps Jack find out about his time in the asylum. It turns out he has four days until his death in 1992 and he needs to find out how he dies. Is it that the experiment goes wrong? Is it abuse from the nurses in the asylum? Is it an attack from a fellow inmate? No. He dies after slipping on ice. All those possibilities of a more dramatic climax and it turns out Jack could have been saved from having better grip on his shoes.

It is a big build up to the moment of Jack's demise. In one episode of being in the jacket he asks 2007 Jackie what her address was in 1992. He then gets Dr. Lorensson to take him to the address with a letter for Jackie's mother. In the letter he explains his death, her death, his meeting with her and Jackie and the time travelling. It is outside the asylum that Jack slips up and is taken, head bleeding, to the morgue where he puts the jacket on one last time. He shoots to 2007 and ends up outside the greasy spoon with his head bleeding. Back in the morgue in 1992 they open the morgue drawer and there is no sign of him! Jackie, who has finished her shift, eyes him with a hint of recognition and again offers him a lift. In the car she asks him how long they have. The credits roll as We Have All The Time in the World blares out.

Henry knew signing up to that extras agency was a good idea.

My question is this: Is he going to disappear from Jackie in 2007 as soon as he dies in 1992? If so why the Hell is he playing with her emotions like that? "How much time do we have?" "I don't know, maybe 10 hours until I am released from my brain dead coma." Has he died in 1992 and then been transported into another dimension? Has his whole existence been changed by giving Jackie's Mum that letter? If so why hasn't he aged in 2007? Why is his head still bloody? The Jacket is a great way for Adrien Brody to show off his acting muscle as a rakishly thin, dreamy and broodingly unexpected heart throb who has a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sadly the script doesn't match his talents. It's a twisty-turny, time travelling science-fiction fare that left me feeling confused and a little disappointed.