Decent deeds don't seem to make life easy for Good Samaritan and Gulf War veteran Jack Starks (Brody).
He lands a bullet in the head while trying to calm a shell-shocked boy in Kuwait and then gets arrested for the murder of a traffic cop after helping out a stranded mum and daughter.
The trouble is Jack's only got a splintered recollection of his past thanks to the round he took from the youngster during the Gulf War.
He doesn't, for instance, remember that he was travelling as a passenger in the car of the drifter who gunned the officer down in cold blood.
Or that he took a ricochet which left the killer with the ideal opportunity to lay the blame on Jack's prone figure lying in the road.
Now he's in the high security psychiatric hospital run by the unorthodox Dr Becker (Kristofferson) after being declared insane during his murder trial.
Shock therapy at Dr Becker's mental institution seems to consist of treating his patients shockingly - strapping them into a strait-jacket, pumping them full of drugs and shoving them into a morgue drawer.
However, every time Jack disappears into the darkness his delusions catapult him into the future where he meets boozy floozy Jackie (Knightley).
It just so happens that she's the grown-up youngster he helped at the side of the road years before but now she's "got more guilt than I know what to do with".
But it doesn't stop her falling for the time traveller and together they begin to piece together exactly how Jack arrived where he is.
Despite being riddled with implausibilities and logic-challenging coincidences, this bowls along courtesy of John Maybury's confident direction.
Nobody does mournful-bordering-on-the-barking better than Adrien Brody while a sterling supporting cast - Daniel Craig, Jennifer Jason Leigh - lend proceedings a believability they probably don't deserve.
However, it knows when to call a halt and is worth hanging on for Iggy Pop's version of We Have All The Time in the World over the closing credits
Tim Evans
Daniel Craig talks to Sky Movies about The Jacket:
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