Jacob’s Ladder (1990)
The opening scene of Jacob’s Ladder is set in Vietnam, where a group of men too old to pass for the 19 yr olds they are playing are seen passing around a joint and making fun of each other dicks. Included in this scene are Ving Rhames, Eric La Salle, Pruitt Vince (Deadwood, JFK, Wild at Heart) among other familiar faces. Quickly guns begin going off and the men start having convulsions and seizures. Blood and chaos.
We are then dropped into the present day (1990) nightmare world of Jacob Singer, a divorced Vietnam War veteran/Postman with horrific (but vague) flashbacks of his near death experience in the War and visions of demons in the present. If that’s not enough He also is haunted by the failure of his first marriage and the accidental death of his son Macaulay Culkin.
Jacob’s reality begins to unravel and when he tries to seek out his old doctor, and no one seems to know anything about him until Jacob finally is informed that he died in a mysterious car explosion. Which, really has there ever been an actually mysterious car explosion ever in history? He is shortly thereafter contacted by Pruitt Vince from the opening who wants to talk about that fateful day, he also informs Jacob that sees demons and is sure he is going to Hell. Hey guess what? Right after they say goodbye his car explodes!
At the funeral all of the other survivors of the opening sequence are present (now looking the appropriate ages) and they begin comparing notes and decide that the Government definitely is keeping secrets about what happened to them. So they get George Costanza on the case, but that is short-lived as the Government has no record of any of them ever serving in the War, and Jacob’s old Veteran buddies suddenly get cold feet. Meanwhile his hallucinations get worse (way worse in a real Hellraiser kinda way), his girlfriend gets mean and his Gaurdian Angle/Physical Therapist Danny Aielo is nowhere to be found.
The performances are solid all around the and direction is pretty solid too, provided here by Adrian Lyne. This is easily Lynes best film, it is also a pretty odd duck sitting next to Fatal Attraction, the terrible version of Lolita and 9 1/2 Weeks.
The mystery government-conspiracy angle working with the pitchblack nightmarescape works really well. The bouncing back and forth gets a little tedious, occasionally at the cost of some of the scares, but the film doesn’t overstay its welcome. It is an unpleasant film, but recommended. I found it as creepy now as I did back in 1990.
