Cast: Jack O'Connell makes his debut to most of the world here (I know I don't remember him in the 300 sequel). He's the one constant throughout. There's a number of familiar faces like Domhnall Gleeson, Garrett Hedlund, and Jai Courtney who pass through. J-Pop star Takamasa Ishihara is getting a lot of praise for his work as a guard at the POW camp O'Connell's character ends up at. He's solid, although I wouldn't say he's spectacular. No, it's all up to O'Connell to make this movie work and he does so stoically (in a good way).
Plot: This is almost like watching The Book of Job adapted as a WWII drama. Louis Zamperini is an American Olympic athelete in WWII who gets stranded at sea for over a month, then survives a Japanese POW camp for a long time after that. It's very easy to see how someone could hear about this true story and immediately think, "This needs to be a movie". I'm not so convinced. At times, this is the Oscar equivalent of "torture porn". It's great that Zamperini survives all this, but I struggle to find the point of following all the hardship. The movie wallows in it. The climactic scene (the one from all the posters) struck me less as a big emotional moment and more as "shit, we need an ending".
Elephant in the Room: How was Angelina Jolie's direction? First of all, she surrounded herself with as much talent behind the camera as humanly possible (seriously, look at the credits and count the nominations). She did everything she could to make sure that her inexperience didn't hurt the movie. I don't have a great eye for direction, so I could be wrong about this, but I'm not sure that even the most accomplished director could fix the problems I did have with the movie. This looks good. The acting is fine. It's well edited. If were are looking at a director as a general manager for a sports team, then I'd call this a success on her part.
To Sum Things Up:
Unbroken is supposed to be a film about the triumph of the human spirit. It's supposed to be an award winning crowd pleaser and O'Connell is supposed to be a revelation. I have to say that I didn't come away with any of that. O'Connell is very talented and great in this, but most of what he's asked to do is look miserable and maybe shed a tear. All the crap that Zamperini has to go through beat me down more than it inspired me. Maybe it is a problem with the direction that I didn't want to jump out of my seat and cheer at the end. I mean, if How to Train Your Dragon 2 can do it, the prestige movie with the combined forces of some of Hollywood's most talented people should be able to as well. I'll probably be much softer on this with a second viewing. This was a bit of a let down for me. Perhaps others will find more meaning in the drudgery.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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