Have you ever seen the movie Jacob’s Ladder (1990)? A friend of mine told me I should watch it. It’s one of those psychological thrillers known in French as a mindfuck. Man, what a film! You never know what’s real and what’s nightmare. We start in the Mekong Delta, 1971, and suddenly the platoon is under fire, but not from the Viet Cong. And then, suddenly, we’re on the C Train, NYC, Bergen Street, B’klyn, and Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins) is unable to find an exit that’s still open, he crosses the tracks, and nearly gets hit by a train, with faceless passengers inside! When he finally comes home we learn that he has a gorgeous little girlfriend called Jezebel (Alexandra Peña), he works as a postman along Nostrand Avenue. (That’s right where I lived!!!) Gradually more and more weird things are happening to Jacob. He’s seeing the most bizarre creatures, he’s hallucinating, he’s going through hell, he’s afraid he’s going paranoid, he collapses at a party, running a terrible fever. Then he wakes up from a nightmare, finding himself in bed with his wife Sarah... his eldest son Gabe is still alive ... he never went to Vietnam ... But wait, no-o-o-o-o, he didn’t wake up from a nightmare ... The nightmare is real!
Jacob is eventually approached by someone who claims to have been a chemist involved in experiments in Vietnam to increase the soldiers’ aggression by means of some type of drug called “The Ladder”. At the funeral of one of his war buddies, he learns that his surviving platoon mates suffer similar hallucinatory nightmares. They decide to file a law suit against the government. But soon his friends from Nam back out and their lawyer tells him there’s no proof they ever went to Vietnam! Things really start to get interesting when he’s coming out of the supreme court building and he’s kidnapped by guys in suits. He’s tortured ... with his girlfriend Jezebel right there! Close toward the end we see him walk up a staircase with his son Gabe... But then we see his dead body still in Vietnam... Apparently we are to understand that everything we saw before was merely a dying hallucination, a purging vision in which Jacob lets go of his earthly attachments before he ascends the eponymous Ladder to heaven... bummer... Still, I’d recommend this movie to everyone who wants to scare themselves silly. But then again, I just gave away the ending... Hmmm...
Jacob is eventually approached by someone who claims to have been a chemist involved in experiments in Vietnam to increase the soldiers’ aggression by means of some type of drug called “The Ladder”. At the funeral of one of his war buddies, he learns that his surviving platoon mates suffer similar hallucinatory nightmares. They decide to file a law suit against the government. But soon his friends from Nam back out and their lawyer tells him there’s no proof they ever went to Vietnam! Things really start to get interesting when he’s coming out of the supreme court building and he’s kidnapped by guys in suits. He’s tortured ... with his girlfriend Jezebel right there! Close toward the end we see him walk up a staircase with his son Gabe... But then we see his dead body still in Vietnam... Apparently we are to understand that everything we saw before was merely a dying hallucination, a purging vision in which Jacob lets go of his earthly attachments before he ascends the eponymous Ladder to heaven... bummer... Still, I’d recommend this movie to everyone who wants to scare themselves silly. But then again, I just gave away the ending... Hmmm...
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