UNBROKEN REVIEW
Through the years of moviemaking, Hollywood has produced a good number of dramatized wartime features with a hefty portion focusing on the trials and tribulations in the World War II era. These films, albeit dramatized to certain degree, carry a certain prestige and alluring appeal in their nature whether through history, diversity, hardships, combat fighting, or warring nations. Some of these features have even become iconic classics including Patton (1970), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Dirty Dozen (1967), Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), and Flags of Our Fathers (2006) just to name a few. Now Universal Pictures and actor / director Angelina Jolie presents the story of WWII veteran Louie Zamperini through the cinematic lens of Hollywood with the film Unbroken. Does this wartime drama reach critical acclaim within its genre or is it another generic run-of-the-mill WWII feature?

※ THE GOOD  / THE BAD
This compelling true story derives from Laura Hillenbrand’s book “Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption”. The book, which was published back in 2010, has gone on to receive many literary awards and an unwavering acclaim from fans and critics alike. Given the book’s success, it was a foregone conclusion that Zamperini’s story would eventually become a feature film in the foreseeable future. Returning to the director’s chair to helm this heroic tale is actress Angelina Jolie. Jolie, who directed the 2011 film In the Land of Blood and Honey, brings with her a talented group of her writers including the Coen brothers (Joel & Ethan), Richard LaGravenese, and William Nicholson to help shape the story around this dramatic narrative. To their credit, they do, offering a film that as powerful as it is moving, but not to it’s fully extent with some bumps in the road.

Unbroken opens with a WWII salvo, dropping viewers into an aerial dogfight with Louie and his airmen bomber crew in enemy territory. It’s a thrilling scene with Louie maneuvering through the plane, watching crew members get hurt or perish and frantic gunfire from Japanese fighters zooming by him and his mates. It’s more interesting that this scene (as well as another similar scene down the road) are spliced, interjecting flashback sequences from Louie’s past as a troubled youth and then as a track runner during the Olympic Games. Could they’ve spent more time in the flashback scenes? I say yes (fleshing them out a little more), but the film does a good job mirroring both action and story points well in Unbroken’s first thirty minutes.

Things slow down considerably, however, when Zamperini and two of his surviving crewmen are set aimlessly adrift in the Pacific Ocean. True, it’s an important scene with the airmen meandering through perils of shark infested waters, dodging enemy fire, and the pain of starvation / cabin fever. Although, with the film’s running time of nearing two hours and twenty minutes long, this particular scene should’ve been reduced down slightly, devoting more time elsewhere in the feature or simply shortened the film’s duration. Things do pick up when Louie enters the POW camp, incurring the wrath of Japanese officer Wantanbe (The Bird) as he tortures Zamperini through public humiliation and physical beatings. The violent acts of punishment during these scenes are brutal to watch with Jolie and her team more fixated on showing Wantabe’s brutality towards the Olympic athlete rather than the characterization of other POWs that are swiftly introduced and come off as forgetful.

Relative newcomer Jack O’Connell leaves his mark on the picture with as Unbroken’s main protagonist Louie Zamperini. His acting is good and brings the emotional weight to the character, but his physical endurance and overall transformation in the movie is both miraculous and remarkable. Opposite O’Connell is Takamasa Ishihara as cruel officer Wantanbe. His role in the feature is to be the antagonist and a great one at that with his mostly calm demeanor and his sadistic treatment towards Louie. The only other character that makes a lasting impression is Domhnail Gleason as Phil, one of the bomber crewmen who survived the fatal plane crash and set adrift at sea with Louie. Other actors like Jai Courtney who plays Hugh Cuppernell (another one of Louie’s bomber crew airmen) and Garett Hedlund as John Fitzgerald (a high ranking POW officer Louie meets up with) are given minor roles and could’ve possible been expanded upon (especially Hedlund’s role).

The book and the movie’s tagline / poster highlight three very important words: survival, resilience, and redemption. While the movie showcases Louie’s survival through his forty seven day odyssey on a life raft and his resilience to Wantanbe’s cruel punishments as a POW, it never shows his redemption. Louie’s journey of redemption is a key element in the book, representing that, through all his turmoil, pain, and atrocities he faced, the salvation and humanity within himself was redeemed by his religious belief and finding forgiveness in those who tortured him. The movie does mention it slightly, touching briefly on Louie’s life after the war before the end credits, but this hardly does it justice. By doing this, it leaves viewers (at the end of the movie) perplexed with Zamperini’s characterization, more or less, ambiguous. In short, the feature still retaining his determination to survive and indomitable resilience, but lacks the emotional depth of how he redeemed himself after experiencing these horrific events. It’s a decision that’s a true misfire and a disappointment from Jolie and the collective screenplay writers for Unbroken.

As a side note, from a technical and visual standpoint, Unbroken holds its own in its consistency of keeping the feature grand with its sets and locales. Its cinematography is also worth noting with several poignant scenes that heightened dramatic camera angles and the swelling of Alexandre Desplat’s musical score. As a final personal note, I believe that Unbroken should’ve been presented as a mini-series rather than a feature film. By doing this, it would allow the story to breathe, expanding on certain things with characters, places, and events to be express fully and not constricted. HBO, giving their track record of producing great WWII mini-series like Band of Brothers and The Pacific, would’ve been the best choice for Unbroken to be produced under.