Unbroken Review
By David Kempler
Not Broken. Not Unbroken.
If you read
Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand's best-selling 2010 book about the amazing life of Louis Zamperini, odds are you will be disappointed by Angelina Jolie's movie adaptation of the same name. Wide chunks of his story are omitted, especially the years after Zamperini returned from World War II. Whether or not this omission is a result of not being able to fit a lengthy book into two hours on screen or an otherwise motivated decision made by Jolie is uncertain.
If you didn't read the book, you still may be disappointed. Mr. Zamperini's saga is so amazing in scope that it plays more like fiction than fact. Jolie's task is awfully tough. She must decide which parts of his life should get the most time and her choices are pretty obvious ones to make, yet as incredible as this whole story is, somehow the sum falls short of expectations.
We first meet young Louie (C. J. Valleroy) living life as a minor juvenile delinquent. He steals small things and drinks liquor. When he gets caught by the cops they go easy on him, because the whole town loves his parents. They are an immigrant Italian family that does their best at trying to raise Louie and his older brother. His older brother is a model citizen, but Louie is a problem.
Everything changes when Louie takes the advice of his older brother and joins the track team. From there, Louie is literally and figuratively running to fame. The result is Louie's making it to the 1936 Olympics, in Berlin, where he finishes first in his race, among the American competitors.
World War II interrupts everyone's lives, including Louie's. His time on the track is replaced by his serving on a bomber in the Pacific. Then everything gets really hairy. Louie's (now played by Jack O'Connell) plane is shot down and he, along with a few of the crew, survive the initial crash into the ocean. They spend a long time floating on a raft, enduring the expected hardships. The eventual survivors are rescued by a Japanese military boat.
The rest of "Unbroken" details his time in a Japanese POW camp. As you might imagine it is not exactly a country club. Mutsushiro Watanabe (Takamasa Ishihara), nicknamed "The Bird", is particularly cruel and vindictive, especially to Louie. Endless torturous scenes start to almost blend into each other, causing the audience to become more numb than outraged. Ultimately, this section drags far more than it should.
The acting is fine, especially by O'Connell. Jolie does a technically fine, if uninspired job, as the director. The cinematography of Roger Deakins is excellent. The writing, primarily by the Coen brothers, is good, but not up to their usual level. Granted, this is not their usual style of film. It is far more straightforward than their usual bizarre stuff. Somehow, what had a chance to be great is only good. Why that is, is not entirely clear, but in total, "Unbroken" is certainly far from broken, but not quite unbroken, either.
