75
A gripping drama that will leave thoughtful cinemagoers wrestling with basic Big Questions.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
60
The director's work is suitably unnerving, but leaves one feeling beaten senseless by reel two. When the hero's well-earned moment of clarity finally arrives, most will likely be too numbed out to care, despite the best efforts of Brody, an actor too vividly alive to be wasting his time playing dead.
40
A disappointing nosedive into the mainstream for John Maybury, the Derek Jarman acolyte who transitioned successfully from experimental work to features with 1998's hallucinatory Francis Bacon biopic "Love Is the Devil."
50
You'll either walk away with a headache,or praising filmmaker John Maybury for his unique narrative...and it is unique, but in my eyes, it's also a big giant mess.
90
Dallas Observer by Luke Y. Thompson
The first great film of 2005.
67
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
Director John Maybury has a feel for shock rhythms, and he's skillful at keeping you guessing, but after a while you want your questions to cohere into compelling answers, and in The Jacket they don't, quite.
50
Rolling Stone by Peter Travers
Though shot for maximum moodiness by the gifted Peter Deming ("Mulholland Drive"), the movie straps you in for a head trip that promises hallucinatory wonders but delivers the same old Hollywood formula with sugar on top.
40
A movie as lacking in personality as its amnesiac protagonist.
40
The A.V. Club by Tasha Robinson
Still, the central mystery remains effective and compelling for most of the film, until it becomes clear that it's all image and no intent.