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Unbroken (2014)

thereviewers
Jun 21, 2015
3 min read

Unbroken is a 2014 biographical war film that details the harrowing story of former Olympian Louis Zamperini, who after a near fatal plane crash in World War Two spends a harrowing 47 days adrift in a raft with two other surviving crewmen only to be captured by the Japanese Navy and transferred to a prisoner of war camp. While at the camp, Louis is subjected to brutal torture at the hands of Mutsuhiro ‘The Bird’ Watanabe – a particularly sadistic and unrelenting prison guard.

Overall Review Score

1.5 out of 10

Review

Based on Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, a 2010 book, by Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken is a 132-minute American war biopic. While the film tells the harrowing story of Louis Zamperini, a former Olympian, who becomes a prisoner of war only to be brutally tortured by his Japanese captures, it skips over certain parts of Louis Zamperini’s life, such as, his fight against PTSD and alcoholism and portrays his Japanese captors as nothing more than unrelenting, inhumane, and sadistic. Despite these already slight tenuous flaws, as the film unfolds more and more issues start to arise with it. For example, when drifting in the boat Louis, and his fellow crewmembers, come across as if they are on a ‘booze-cruise’ rather than floating adrift running out of food and water, as they do not fight, argue or even really react to planes flying overhead. Similarly, when the film finally makes it to the prisoner of war camp scenes, all the prisoners – despite the camp looking dirty and the guards appearing overtly-aggressive – all seem to have perfectly trimmed and combed hair (maybe the Japanese thought professionally cut hair would break the prisoners). Overall, Unbroken had a seriously good premise, it could have been a great film but its poor character development, haphazard cutting and musical score choice and its insurmountable flaws quickly lose the audience. While parts of the film are harrowing, difficult to watch and will resonate with the audience, the majority of the film fails to deliver and comes across as a giant motivational metaphor, complete with cringe-worthy and occasionally comical quotes, rather than a serious biography.

Reviewer 1's score & comments:

Score: 2 out of 10

Comments:

Based on the incredible true story of Olympian Louis Zamperini, Unbroken should have been a mesmerising tale of human endurance, which showcased the resilient power of the human spirit against insurmountable odds. However, director Angelina Jolie presents the audience with a very flat and unconvincing film, filled with unnecessary scenes that add nothing to the story. Further to this, the story never really displays the depth of raw emotions that I was hoping for in this survival drama, showing instead how three crewmen can maintain facial grooming while adrift in a raft, and how other prisoners become magically blind whenever another prisoner is getting punished. With all this being said what devalued the film for me was the at time lifeless acting by Jack O’Connell which had me questioning whether or not his character (Louis) had managed to remained unbowed, unbent and unbroken.

Reviewer 2's score & comments:

Score: 1 out of 10

Comments:

Unbroken is a film that struggled from its opening scene. Unbroken was marketed as a harrowing story of how an Olympian survived a brutal prisoner of war camp. However, the majority of the film is, actually, about three men in a boat – well not actually a boat...more like a supersized inflatable yellow dingy – and only twenty to thirty minutes is actually dedicated to Louis Zamperini in a prisoner of war camp. Although, ignoring this marketing faux pas, the film still could have been good but its cutting patterns come across as ill timed and severely distract the audience from more powerful and emotional scenes, and the characters feel as if they are either one-dimensional, incoherent or in a lot of pain. Overall, Unbroken is a film that could have been good, it had a solid premise, but its attempt to tell Louis Zamperini’s entire life story in 132 minutes, rather than just his time in a prisoner of war camp, will break the audience and leave them uninterested and unentertained.