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Summary: Jacob's Ladder Is A Super Psychological Thriller
Review: Jacob's Ladder is a psychological thriller in which Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins), a Vietnam veteran, is suffering from hallucinations which seem to have some connection with what happened to him one night in Vietnam war. Jacob finds himself living in different time realities and he just cannot grab at the present time. He sees demons and nightmarish visions strangely combined with flashbacks of that night in Vietnam which make him pass out. When he regains conciousness, he wakes up to completely a different time reality which, too, turns out to be a false at the end, leading him to another false reality. He cannot make sense of the situation and thinks he is losing his mind. He constantly finds himself trapped in neverending sequences of nightmares that he cannot wake up from. This cycle never ends until the end of the film when all the other realities vanish, leaving out only one reality which makes Jacob's Ladder a brilliant movie. Jacob's physician Louis probably express the main theme of the movie best in these words: "So, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth."I think this movie is unfairly underestimated and not given enough credit. Tim Robbins' performance is flawless and fascinating. Adrian Lyne directed the movie very well; the emotions and the tension that are aimed to be brought about are achieved quite successfully. One interesting fact about the movie is that when you watch it for the second time, you notice a lot of things, which you did not notice or could not make sense out of in the first place. Names, small incidents, conversations, even the advertisement in the downtown train take on a new meaning once you know what is really happening to Jacob Singer. I strongly recommend Jacob's Ladder to the people who like psychological thrillers and soft horror movies.
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Summary: A superb dreamlike film
Review: This is a superb and nightmarish film from briton adrian lyne and the transfer to dvd is exceptional with a commentary and making of feature the sound and picture are very good and it all adds up to excellant value buy it!
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Summary: An excellent film that makes one question reality. . .
Review: "Jacob's Ladder," is a very creative film that questions all parameters of the average American life. Although lacking in the modern day effect standards this movie more than makes up for them with an incredibly involving story line that keeps the viewers interest at all points. This is a must see for all people that have questioned how substantial life really is.
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Summary: A helluva lot more scary than "the bland witch project"!!
Review: This movie should be certified a 1990s classic. It could scare the skin off a Marines General (I've never seen this, but hey, it's possible). The whole philosophy, "Are you really alive?" keeps the goosebumps up and alert all through.
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Summary: GREAT MOVIE, BUT COPIED BY TOO MANY MOVIES
Review: GREAT, DISTURBING, ODD MOVIE, COPIED BY THE SIXTH SNESE AND THE DEVILS ADVOCATE, STILL A CLASSIC THOUGH
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Summary: Unbelieveable
Review: This is seriously one of the best movies I have ever seen. Tim Robins does one of his best performances, second only to Shawshank.
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Summary: A movie of dreams and life and dreamlife
Review: Many movies have a great beginning, a great middle... but the ending sucks. The ending of Jacob's Ladder does not suck. This movie is all ending; it's is a power play from start to finish and explosively reveals itself only in the last 10 seconds: all mysteries are revealed; you have watched, in realtime, the last two hours of a man's life. It's a power play about the most central fact of any person's life--the big goodbye--and I am astounded that the film industry was willing to put money into such a vision. But then again, Jacob's Ladder does go both ways.
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Summary: Jacob's Ladder is several rungs short of satisfying
Review: Jacob's Ladder is a motion picture version of the Ambrose Bierce short story "Incident at Owl Creek Bridge". Unlike Bierce's story, however, Ladder is overlong and asks more questions than it finally answers. The movie itself is woven too intricately and relies on too many flashbacks to really allow the viewer to get a basic idea of what's supposed to be real. And Tim Robbins is ineffectual as the lead, Jacob: an ex-Vietnam vet whose hallucinations and run-ins with mysterious people lead him to believe he's been the victim of government testing. The magic of Bierce's short story was that its surprise ending is made even the more shocking by his as-a-matter-of-fact, point A to point B storytelling. Jacob's Ladder gets too surreal for its own good by mentioning that there are twenty-four other letters of the alphabet and that they warrant naming and examining before going from point A to point B. While the ending of Jacob's Ladder is true to the short story, the muddled storytelling leading up to it is several rungs short of satisfying.
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Summary: Dazzling and Disturbing at the same time
Review: This movie is a must-see! It is about a Vietnam war vet experiencing hallucinations that may or may not be real, and gradually losing his grip on reality. Every time something happens to alleviate or shed hope on Jacob Singer's odyssey through hell, things get worse. It is a pure torture for Jacob, but also the audience to witness. For instance, when Jacob tries to console his friend who is suffering the same hallucinations, they leave a bar feeling some measure of security. But when Jacob goes to pick up a coin he finds and says it's his lucky day, the coin sweeps away from him, and after that his friend dies in a car explosion. Another example is when Jacob rounds up with his old Vietnam comrades to take action against the government for what was done to them; the next day his comrades chicken out and he is kidnapped by government officials and surgeons inject a needle into his brain. The despair never lets up, which is why this film is definitely not for the squeamish. But this film is for people who love a well-made, atmospheric odyssey. There are many memorable scenes, that are both dazzling and disturbing at the same time. I love the scene when Jacob is at a party in his apartment; everything starts off okay and gradually decays into madness with a strobe light flashing grotesquely frightening faces and forms. Also, when Jacob is wheeled into a hospital on a gurney, the scene transforms from reality to something very unreal but always familiar; for instance, Jacob sees that one of the surgeons is his girlfriend (who is actually a postal worker). And one of my favorite scenes is the very beginning when Jacob is trying to walk across a subway track, and he hears nothing until a subway train blasts light into his face very suddenly, and when the train passes him ghostly faces stare out the windows. There is no movie quite like Jacob's Ladder. It is full of paranoia, fear, despair, and confusion. But it is also a leap into dark and beautiful nostalgia.
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Summary: THE BEST movie ever
Review: The first time I saw this movie I was simply swept of my feet : what a great story, what great acting, what great camera work. This is the most impressive and mind-altering movie I have ever seen. The DVD transfer is also quite good. You can tell the original movie wasn't in mint condition, but the DVD transfer is a lot better than most others from the same period. If you like intelligent movies, simply buy this one, and ignore the rest.
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