Climbing the Ladder

Jacob's Ladder has been swimming around me like an incredibly patient shark for 20 years. Though I had never seen this psychological thriller from director Adrian Lyne, I've been curious about it for a while.

In fact (and confessing this is going to underscore my geekiness -- not that it's a secret), the first time I ever attended a Star Trek convention, one of the buzzed-about attractions there was that they were going to be showing a bunch of footage from this movie, months ahead of its release. (This was back in 1990, where the "standing room only" event -- aside from the appearance of various actors -- was the screening of the brand new Star Trek: The Next Generation fourth season premiere, that would wrap up the epic "Best of Both Worlds" cliffhanger. Yikes.)

Anyway... Jacob's Ladder. It stars Tim Robbins as a Vietnam veteran trying to reassimilate (ha!) to regular life after the war. But he's haunted (literally, nearly) by strange events and terrifying figures that stalk him everywhere he goes. The movie also features a before-they-were-known Jason Alexander, Eriq La Salle, and Ving Rhames, as well as the I-guarantee-you'd-know-his-face (well, his eyes for damn sure) Pruitt Taylor Vince. Oh, and yes, that's Macaulay Culkin as the man's son, though he's not even credited on film.

The movie is more interested in delivering dynamic and even chilling visuals than it is in telling a coherent narrative. The story is deliberately not meant to make sense, and is supposed to lend itself to a guessing game of "this could be what's going on, or it could be that!" The problem is, the guessing game fails for me on two levels. To explain why, I'm going to have to talk a bit about the ending, so if you've never seen this movie and feel any inclination to do so, skip the next two paragraphs.

First, the movie lies to achieve its mystery. In the end, it's revealed that all the events we're witnessing are occuring only in the hero's mind as he's experience a final lucid dream before death. As such, nothing should occur inside the dream that he isn't personally there to witness; if he's not there, then it isn't happening. Instead, there are short scenes sprinkled into the film, mostly of his girlfriend (Elizabeth Peña) on her own. In one such scene, she takes cherished photos to burn them in an incinerator without his knowledge. This is of course completely impossible if it's his dream. This is purely a cheat to mislead the audience away from the true scenario. Shame on the writer for writing this material, and shame on the writer and director for not cutting it once it was filmed. It's not being true to the story.

Secondly, the film opens in Vietnam, and on-screen text actually informs you that we're in Vietnam and tells us the year. This is the only indication of time or place in the movie; even when we're back in the States what must be years later, no helpful on screen text tells us when and where we are now -- the audience is left to gather that contextually. Now, setting aside the fact that I just said this movie lies, the "on screen text" of a movie is always an objective sort of narrator that speaks the truth. And since the only time it appears in this movie is to tell us we're in Vietnam in 1972 -- well, then you know that must be the truth. Basically, I feel that the ending is spoiled in the first five seconds of the movie.

So, with the ending being rocky at best, all you're left with in this movie is the journey. And it's a mixed one. Visually, it's outstanding. Many later films were clearly inspired by different techniques that showed up here. The acting is good throughout, and Tim Robbins shines as he carries the film squarely on his shoulders. But there isn't really a plot. It's just a scrambled arrangement of weirdness that's not meant to be coherent. It's a macabre little picture book with few words.

Overall, I rate Jacob's Ladder a C+. I would guess that most people reading this who would like it have probably already seen it, so there's not really any recommendation for me to make here.