The Jacket, hailed as an "underrated" thriller (via MovieWeb), has found a new streaming home on Prime Video in the UK. First released in 2005, the sci-fi flick was directed by John Maybury, the English filmmaker behind The Edge of Love (2008), and it also stars Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley, Kris Kristofferson, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Daniel Craig.
Partly based on Jack London's 1915 novel The Star Rover, the film follows Jack Starks (Brody), a Gulf War veteran living with amnesia. After returning home to Vermont in 1992, Jack is wrongly convicted of murder and sent to a mental hospital run by Dr Thomas Becker (Kris Kristofferson).
While subjected to a cruel treatment plan, Jack realises that he can time-travel to the future, and becomes determined to change the fate of a young woman named Jackie (Keira Knightley) as well as his own.
Among the star-studded line-up, Craig portrays Rudy Mackenzie, one of Jack's inmates at the asylum.
A film which has sparked mixed reviews, The Jacket currently holds a score of 44% on Rotten Tomatoes. "Ultimately, it doesn't amount to much, but like Starks' drug-induced trip, The Jacket is about the journey, not the destination," mused BBC.com.
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"The Jacket is doing nothing but sampling elements of Jacob's Ladder, The Silence of the Lambs and Memento," argued The Washington Post.
Meanwhile, The New York Times declared: "Make no mistake, this movie is terribly silly, but it's not completely terrible."
Speaking with Indie London, Knightley revealed why she was initially drawn to the project. "I was in Dublin shooting King Arthur, and I'd been sent ten scripts, all perfectly good," she began.
"Nine of them melted into one, the very English plucky type vibe. Which is marvellous if you can get it.
"Then I read The Jacket. It was just completely different, a totally unique piece of work. It was an opportunity to do an American accent, which I hadn't tried. It was just a very exciting thing."
The Jacket is currently available to stream on Prime Video.
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