Viking Night: Jacob's Ladder
By Bruce Hall
July 30, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Typical of the era, this is an ambitious drama that draws its primary inspiration from the Vietnam War. It introduces us to infantryman Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins) and his unit, taking a break from the grind of war along the fabulous Mekong Delta in 1971. A surprise attack wipes out half the platoon, while the other half find themselves paralyzed by violent spasms and mortal fear, as though they've been exposed to a nerve agent. They're under attack by something much more sinister than the Viet Cong, but before he can get his bearings, Jacob takes a bayonet to the gut and passes out.
We next see him four years later, on a subway train in New York, having fallen asleep on the way home from work. Like an afterimage, everything around him is vaguely reminiscent of what was obviously a flashback, and as he disembarks he finds his stop closed off. As he wanders the dark, muggy maze of tunnels he's almost struck by a train filled with ghoulish figures. The high point of both scenes - the jungle and the tunnels - is the way they're shot and edited so as to keep you unsettled and off balance. It's an effective and chilling start to a film that only gets weirder from here on out.
Director Adrian Lyne (9 1/2 Weeks, Fatal Attraction) does well by the source material, but veteran editor Tom Rolf (Taxi Driver, The Right Stuff) may be the real hero here. Moments of levity, solemnity and frenzy intertwine unpredictably much the way they do at pivotal times in life. When it kicks in, the self preservation instinct turns us all into animals and back again and by the time Jacob makes it home - if you've got a soul - you'll share his primal, hollowed out feeling. It's the same one we all get after a surprise brush with death, or when we sit through a seriously jacked up movie that wants to stick its fingers in your head and scramble your brains.
Waiting for Jacob is his live in lover Jezebel (Elizabeth Pena), who served as his warm, soft landing spot when his marriage disintegrated. Jezzie, as she's called, is a petty, impatient woman who barely tolerates Jacob’s fragile emotional states. He still mourns his estranged wife, as well as a son who died before the war. Like her Biblical namesake, Jezebel tends to lead her man in false, unproductive directions and she also does her best to control him with hot sex and hard partying. And it works, for a while. But Jacob pines for the meaning and stability his life once had and when his near death experiences and wild hallucinations start to pile up - and manifest themselves physically - he goes looking for answers.
He finds some when Paul (Pruitt Taylor Vince), one of his old Army buddies comes calling, claiming to suffer from the same post trauma symptoms. After an unexpected event brings the rest of the band back together, it turns out the surviving members of Jacob’s unit are all in the same freaky boat. But when they join forces and begin digging for answers, the rabbit hole proves to be far deeper than any of them thought. So, driven by what seems to be madness, and tortured by the memory of his life as it might have been, Jacob’s journey becomes an increasingly grim struggle for redemption, solace and ultimately - peace. It’s a lot of imagery and subtext to digest, but you can’t take your eyes away, and you can’t shut your mind to it. This is the rare movie that leaves you feeling like you’ve been intellectually and spiritually manhandled.
Big ideas require big talent, and strong direction and editing always come off better with the right faces in front of the camera. Despite a large supporting cast, it's largely up to Robbins to carry this thing, and he does so quite brilliantly. Robbins is preternaturally earnest, but the tortured being he creates here requires more than twinkling eyes and a baby face, and his performance clearly comes from within. And speaking of supporting players, Jacob’s Ladder also boasts a lot of very familiar faces including Danny Aiello, Ving Rhames, Eriq La Salle (that handsome brother from “ER"), Jason Alexander, Matt Craven (you know his face), Lewis Black (yes, that Lewis Black), and some kid named Macaulay Culkin. I'm not sure how, but you could make a pretty good drinking game out of that bunch.
And you may want to because man, is this movie all about death and intensity; it seeps into your soul and plays mean games with your feelings. Part mystery, part war story and part body horror thriller, Jacob’s Ladder is also about coming to terms with the life you've lived, and the fact that we're all going to feel like we ran out of time when it's all over. It’s basically a nightmarish rumination about how unproductive it is to dwell on regret. There are fundamental questions we're all made to consider when we face death, and for most of us - whether we're on the God Squad or not - it's informed by whatever notions we have about the afterlife. This movie is wall to wall Biblical references and allusions to the hereafter, and the clear takeaway is that life is short, death is obligatory, and clinging to things we can no longer have makes them both unnecessarily painful.
Many find Jacob’s Ladder to be a bleak, draining experience, and I guess I can't blame them. This is a very philosophical horror movie that is all about death, death, and more death. And the ending - while not the first time it's been done - delivers a painful surprise that you're not likely to ever forget, although you really should see it coming. You're either gonna want to hug or hump someone you love after this one, my friends. I do find this movie jarring, but in a positive way - as an attestation that how we cope with death is just as important as how we cope with life. And in fact, perhaps the only way to find peace when your time finally comes is to pursue it as best you can while you're still here. Don’t expect to have a good time, but if you let yourself open your mind, Jacob’s Ladder just might make you open your eyes.