Review: Jacob's Ladder

A year or two after its theatrical release in 1990, Vicki and I watched Jacob's Ladder as a video rental. We both came away from that experience with a positive impression of the film, but a decade and a half later, neither of us could've given even a cursory plot description of it. Fortunately, I recently recorded it, and tonight we had our second viewing.

I don't want to spoil the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it - or, like us, doesn't remember it! - so I won't give away the final reveal. Suffice it to say that what's shown in the closing ten minutes or so puts the preceding events in a completely new light... and then does it again! It's the sort of finale that is likely to have you talking, and thinking, about it for awhile afterwards. But even if, for some reason, you weren't able to see the end of the story, you'd still have been quite entertained up to that point.

Jacob Singer, played by Tim Robbins, seems to be rapidly losing his mind right before our eyes. He's a Vietnam vet whose connection to reality is slipping away with each new bizarre experience he has. From subway stations that are mysteriously locked down - with him inside! - to a Brazil-like scene in a hospital-from-Hell, Jacob's often not sure what's real, and what's not. And of course the viewer is put in exactly the same position! Is he really being hounded by demons, has he wandered into some dark dimension, or is he simply going cuckoo for Coco-Puffs? Finding out the answer turns out to be quite the ride!

Besides reminding me of the aforementioned Terry Gilliam classic from 1985, I also spotted a possible homage to James Whale's Frankenstein - in a chiropractor's office, of all places, as a zany Danny Aiello implores his patient to get up from his adjustment platform and "waaaaalk!" - as well as a shot of a pile of severed arms that has to strike a chord with anyone who's ever seen Apocalypse Now: specifically, Colonel Kurtz's famous description of the village where he and his men had gone to inoculate some children against polio. And I'd be lying if I didn't acknowledge how thrilled I was to see lovely Elizabeth Pena again, who'd later go on to shoot the lights out in Lone Star. And that response wasn't just because of all her nude scenes here, although that sort of thing never hurts!

Oh, and if you're a Macaulay Culkin fan - and who isn't? - he has an uncredited part in the film as Jacob's ill-fated son Gabriel. And even in that small a role, he still manages to grab your heart-strings and show some impressive range! (Hey, I'm only half-joking here!)

Jacob's Ladder is a pretty smart film, both in its use of images to make its audience uncomfortable, and in the way it fairly foreshadows its ending... both of them! I now remember why I liked it so much, but who knows if I still will fifteen years from now! Maybe by then it'll be time to watch it again anyway...

Rating: ***