Jacob’s Ladder ***½ (1990, Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Peña, Danny Aiello) – Classic Movie Review 5197

Director Adrian Lyne’s eerie, eye-catching 1990 horror movie finds Tim Robbins climbing the ladder to stardom in a stalwart performance as the divorced, traumatised Vietnam vet, New York postal worker Jacob Singer, who is troubled by terrible nightmares.

Danny Aiello is also very good as the osteopath who treats Robbins. Macaulay Culkin has only an unbilled cameo as Robbins’s dead son Gabe. Also in the cast are Elizabeth Peña, Matt Craven, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Jason Alexander, Patricia Kalember, Ving Rhames, Eriq LaSalle and Brian Tarantina.

It is an intriguing, often compelling film, with striking cinematography by Jeffrey L Kimball, smart production designs by Brian Morris and good special effects by FxSmith Inc. Maurice Jarre’s score is notable too. The premise, characters and ideas are strong and intelligent, though the film is marred by scrappy story-telling from screen-writer Bruce Joel Rubin, the man who won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for writing Ghost (1990), with a particularly unsatisfying conclusion.

However, there are several scary sequences, spiritual highs and great monsters along the interesting way. Despite all its good qualities, it was a costly flop, costing $25 million, grossing $26 million in the US, and losing $40 million.

It was advertised as ‘from the director of Fatal Attraction‘ (1987).

A remake is planned for 2017.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5197

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