I don't know where to put this exactly, but I had a few quick questions about the ending to this movie. Good movie, but not great. Felt like a rehash of 12 Monkeys, but this time (no pun intended) with an upbeat ending. However, since this movie adhered to one theory of time-travel, the writers, of course, screwed up with their own rules to secure a "happy ending."
*SPOILER!*
The character George MacKenzie (the blue-eyed inmate whose wife left him) has a fuzzy green-coated wire wrapped around his fingers as he looks at Jack Starks through a window. During a montage of people during Jack's final voiceover, the real cop-killer is seen in a bar...spinning the same type of fuzzy green-coated wire around his fingers. Is this meant to hint at anything? Furthermore, how does MacKenzie die, or does he die with the changed time line? Was it the jacket that caused people to go through time or was Jack a unique case because of his already dying once? I was confused about these points.
"During a montage of people during Jack's final voiceover..." LOL, don't question my VAST vocabulary (:
Correction, the character's name is Rudy MacKenzie. Evidently, the actor playing Rudy (Daniel Craig) is going to be the new James Bond. This is a little off-topic, I know, but I realized the error I made in the character's name, and I recently saw Daniel Craig in Layer Cake. Awesome movie, by the way.
*SPOILER!*
I rented The Jacket on DVD mainly to see the alternate endings. After watching it and applying any one of the three alternate endings, I realized the movie made a whole lot more sense. I mean, the fact is that Jack slipped on the ice, thereby cracking his skull, and demanded to be put into the drawer one last time all BECAUSE he went to change Jackie's (Keira Knightly) future. The time-travel angle in the movie was a self-fulfilling prophecy, otherwise known as the Pygmalion Effect. To have the protagonist just conveniently change time to suit himself--and to give the movie a happy ending--lends evidence to the sequence of events all being part of A) Jack's final living moments before he dies in 1991 Iraq, or B) Dr. Becker's behavioral modification treatment (and it's implied in this alternate ending that Jack's imagination all took place during his first time in the drawer).
Of the three alternate endings, I prefer the first one in which he awakens to find himself back in the drawer fully alive and with Dr. Becker calling his name. I know this would've irked some audiences who wanted a happy ending or expected the movie to sincerely involve time-travel, but it would have been a welcomed twist. The other two alternate endings completely reminded me of the ending to Jacob's Ladder. The posthumous voiceover narration also smacked of American Beauty.
In conclusion, I definitely feel this movie ought to have had the "still in the drawer" ending or commit to the pre-death theory. Otherwise, the ending still just doesn't fit with this movie, much like the movie's namesake worn by Adrien Brody.