TheEthosDiary The first time I saw this movie I was lost, I had no clue whatsoever what was happening to Jacob. Second time around I tried harder to wrap my mind around everything that was happening and going on, still nothing at all. One of my supervisors at work was a veteran, he had asked me if I had ever read the book, "The Five Fingers", we hadn't discussed this movie at all. By the time I got to the end of the book I had come to realize it was about a military hallucinogenic drug. It hit me then, that strange movie I had never seemed to understand or get at all, the movie about this military soldier going through these strange experiments, "Jacob's Ladder" ! Want to understand this movie, put this into the google search: Jacob's Ladder military hallucinogenic drug

agustintomaslarghi This is the first review that I write on IMDb, just for the fact that this is a terribly underrated film, and I couldn't believe that this film scored just a 7.5/10 while films such as The Sixth Sense scored a 8.1/10Jacob's Ladder kept me at the edge of my seat all the time, not knowing what to expect next. This film embodies the core principles of the psychological thriller genre, you don't know if the protagonist is just suffering from PTSD, if is something going wrong for real, if his in hell or something like that, what is real and what is in his mind.The acting of Tim Robbins in this film is really outstanding, you can feel the fear and the pain of the protagonist through the film with each dialog, with each scene, you just want him to have some peace. The movie throws at you many symbolisms, making you guess what's going on.If you like the Silent Hill game sage (which is heavily influenced by this film) you're going to love this film.If you like psychological thrillers but you hate when the plot is really obvious or the plot twist is just a slap on your face, be sure that this isn't that kind of film.Not gonna lie you, the ending can make you feel a little empty, but if you're watching a psychological thriller you're not in for the happy ending.This film is twice as good when you watch it a second time, because you can tie all loose ends and all the symbolisms through the movie. Hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.

tiskec This movie is outstanding. It's scary in your creepy, thriller, and psychosis kind of way. However, this movie is also scary in the fact that it reveals that government secrets do exist. They're not just a bunch of jive. In the movie, the main character Jacob is shown in early Vietnam, wounded and winding down to unconsciousness. He eventually wakes up in the "post Vietnam War," to find out his son and his family are okay. He lives a "normal" life as a mailman in New York City. Then, he starts getting these weird visuals, people with tails and foreign body structures. Eventually, they all turn into monsters. Then one day, he wakes up in a bed next to a woman he knew before he met his wife; he's all confused about this. He starts living in two alternate realities, with visions of occurrences that aren't quite clear, or that contain hellish creatures and settings. In one of his realities, he calls all of his Vietnam buddies to see if they're experiencing the same situations he's going through. Lone and behold, they're all experiencing "it." They all thought they would think each individual would think they were nuts if they admitted it, but they soon establish that they're not nuts among each other.Jacob soon finds out through his dream that a chemist had been experimenting with a new drug in order to make super soldiers out of the Army. The test was selected of a small platoon in the Vietnam jungle. It worked alright; so good that the whole platoon killed each other afterwords. it filled everyone with super human rage.You think all of this is fiction, but it's not. Everything that happened was of Jacob's self conscience, unwilling to let go of his family. He's actually dying in a Vietnam medical facility, pumped full of this drug. He is actually living in his self conscience. This movie is very creepy. There is a synopsis at the end that verifies the testing of this drug on Vietnam soldiers during the war. It also states that the Pentagon still tries to deny the authorization of this testing/strategy. The Pentagon doesn't want to take any responsibility (hmmm, sound like American politicians to me). I will let the viewer experience what happens in the end. I don't want to spoil too much. This movie is outstanding. At the end, I was just like...."wow." I would definitely recommend this movie to anyone.

John Brooks This is the ultimate film when it comes to a very specific style of cinema-thinking, a very definite and expansive use of cinema altogether in what it is and means to achieve. I'll write this review with no Spoiler at all, so I must be conservative with my commenting. This film is a scifi-ish, mystery-drama with tinges of horror. It explores the life of a Vietnam ex-solider who returns to mainstream life after suffering a particularly traumatic experience and attempts to put the pieces back together to understand why he is in such a state years later. The film explores human psychology through strong imagery, and cinematic expression, in ways that are all of frightening and vivid, subtle and emotional, and very intellectually stimulating. The story is perfectly constructed, the acting solid throughout, and it sets up the main character in exactly the right environment of a double life so that he and the viewer may discover and unravel the truth about it all bit by bit as the suspense grows and the anticipation for something huge to drop at the end rings with eagerness. And the ending is so, so dearly worth your time. One of the very top films I've ever watched; it is total-cinema, touching on all genres at once, and taking advantage of all available strengths. Supreme cinema.