Based on Laura Hillenbrand's best-selling novel, Unbroken is almost too respectful of its subject. He's surely deserving, but by trying to cram in multiple phases of his pre-athletic life to his Olympic triumphs to his combat exploits, and finally to his time as a POW, there's simply too much going on to hold together. Also consider that the narrative, most recently penned by the Coen Brothers, bounces around chronologically with his athletic prowess as the emotional touchstone. Whatever encouragements and lessons he learned giving him the strength to endure later hardships. "If you can take it, you can make it." Functionally it works; you can't help but admire Zamperini but we aren't given enough to separate his story from numerous other movies about the survivors of POW camps.The film opens with a blistering mid-air sequence in which Zamperini and his B52 bomber team endure enemy gunfire while on an all-important run. As the bomb doors jam and the crew is torn apart by bullets, we see his split second decision-making, courage, and fearlessness all in one stunning act of bravery. This is a long stretch from the petty criminal he was as a youth before discovering he was just a little bit faster than everyone else. Running helped turn Zamperini's life around, becoming a well-respected man who raced for America in the 1936 Olympics. There would have been more races if it weren't for WWII getting in the way. When their bomber is shot down over the ocean, Zamperini, pilot Russell Phillips (Domhnall Gleeson), and another spend a starving, sunbaked 47 days floating in a dingy. Let's just say it's not as exciting as Life of Pi or as gripping as All is Lost. You keep hoping for a CGI tiger to pop up and just eat them already.
Their ordeal, and ours, takes a more sadistic turn when the survivors are captured by the Japanese and placed in a prison camp run by a brutal guard nicknamed "The Bird" (Japanese pop star Miyavi). He takes a special kind of pleasure in torturing the Olympian, beating him just for looking in his general direction. Then he beats him some more for not looking. The Bird is like the grown-up version of the kid who enjoyed pulling legs off of bugs. The beatings get worse, and Zamperini bravely endures them while fulfilling his patriotic duty. When given the chance to publicly denounce the United States he refuses. He only begins to waver when the punishments start affecting the other men. Even then he remains "unbroken", but we've long since endured enough of Zamperini's suffering to throw in the towel ten times over.
Jolie's sophomore effort is a marvel of technical efficiency. Much like her impressive directorial debut, In the Land of Blood and Honey, she shows a sure hand for the broad dramatic sweep of war but struggles with the more intimate moments. Maybe there were too many hands involved on the screenplay but clunky script does her and O'Connell no favors. O'Connell's strangely muted performance doesn't live up to the aggressive promise he showed in Starred Up and '71, and one can't help but think he was miscast in the role. There's something about these specific kinds of movies that just haven't clicked lately. Remember last year's The Railway Man? The problem lies in idolizing the subject; rounding off any rough edges to present the most heroic, cleanest version possible. Unbroken is still an admirable crowd-pleasing film but Zamperini's story is worthy of so much more than that. Rating: 2.5 out of 5
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