unbroken movie review essay

Film Review: ‘Unbroken’

Jack O'Connell plays Olympic athlete and American war hero Louis Zamperini in Angelina Jolie's well-mounted but underwhelming WWII drama.

By Justin Chang

Justin Chang

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Impeccable craftsmanship and sober restraint have been brought to bear on “ Unbroken ,” Angelina Jolie ‘s beautifully wrought but cumulatively underwhelming portrait of Louis Zamperini , the Olympic runner-turned-U.S. Air Force bombardier who spent 47 days lost at sea and more than two years as a prisoner of the Japanese military during WWII. In re-creating the nightmarish journey so harrowingly relayed in Laura Hillenbrand’s biography, Jolie has achieved something by turns eminently respectable and respectful to a fault, maintaining an intimate, character-driven focus that, despite the skill of the filmmaking and another superb lead performance from Jack O’Connell, never fully roars to dramatic life. A bit embalmed in its own nobility, it’s an extraordinary story told in dutiful, unexceptional terms, the passionate commitment of all involved rarely achieving gut-level impact.

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With a major awards push for Jolie and her topnotch collaborators — d.p. Roger Deakins, composer Alexandre Desplat and editors Tim Squyres and William Goldenberg not least among them — Universal should be able to court a sizable worldwide audience for this capably stirring, morally unambiguous and classically polished prestige picture about an unusually spirited member of the Greatest Generation who survived a hell beyond anyone’s imagination. (Zamperini died in July at the age of 97, due to complications from pneumonia.) After languishing in development for decades, the project finally took viable shape with the 2010 publication of Hillenbrand’s book, adapted here by the unlikely team of the Coen brothers (in their third scripting-for-hire gig, after 2012’s “Gambit” and 1985’s “Crimewave”), Richard LaGravenese and William Nicholson.

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Regardless of their individual contributions, none of the credited writers faced an easy or enviable task in fashioning a feature-length narrative out of their exhaustively researched source material (for which Hillenbrand interviewed Zamperini 75 times over the course of eight years). In runners’ parlance, “Unbroken” feels like a good, steady 10k where a marathon was arguably called for: For all its scenes of intense deprivation and extreme brutality, the film never quite manages, over the course of 137 carefully measured minutes, to reproduce the feeling of a sustained endurance test. Nor does it succeed in dramatizing the human need for faith and forgiveness, one of its more baldly stated themes, in more than perfunctory, platitudinous terms.

Of course, to expect any movie to place the viewer directly into Zamperini’s spiked cleats, or even begin to approximate the depth and horror of his wartime experiences, would hold it to an impossible standard. Yet the bar is set unreasonably high from the moment “Unbroken” introduces itself as “a true story,” a presumptuous choice of words (the “based on” qualifier is conspicuously absent) that the script never fully earns as it guides us through a series of conventional, connect-the-dots flashbacks. An exciting aerial-combat prologue finds O’Connell’s Louis  — or Louie, as he was more commonly known — flying a rickety B-24 bomber over the Pacific, where he and his comrades drop their payload on Japanese bases, shoot down Zero planes and take plenty of fire in return.

In short order we’re introduced to Louie’s younger self (a perfectly cast C.J. Valleroy), a restless, often bullied and misunderstood kid from Torrance, Calif., whose trouble-making antics give his Italian immigrant parents (Maddalena Ischiale, Vincenzo Amato) no shortage of grief. Yet his older brother Pete (played at different ages by John D’Leo and Alex Russell) soon recognizes that Louie’s talent of getting himself in and out of various scrapes has made him an uncommonly fast runner, and before long the kid is not just a high-school track star but a local legend, hailed in the papers as “the Tornado of Torrance.”

“A moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory,” Pete tells his brother, in one of those handy, endlessly recyclable nuggets of thematic wisdom that will resonate just a few short scenes later, when 19-year-old Louie makes it to the 1936 Berlin Olympics and places a not-too-shabby eighth in the 5,000-meter race. Although there’s a brief glimpse of Jesse Owens (Bangalie Keita) and swastika flags, foreshadowing events on the not-too-distant horizon, the film notably omits such juicy details as Louie’s brief handshake with Hitler, focusing instead on the lad’s quicksilver ability to defy the odds, to evince a sudden burst of speed or stamina when it counts most — whether that means overtaking his more seasoned opponents on the track, or surviving the horrific ordeal that awaits him on May 27, 1943.

On that day, a B-24 crashes into the Pacific, killing eight men aboard and leaving Louie stranded at sea with his pilot, Capt. Russell Alan “Phil” Phillips (Domhnall Gleeson), and tail gunner, Sgt. Francis “Mac” McNamara (Finn Wittrock). Bobbing along in two life rafts with dwindling rations, fending off attacks by neighboring sharks and Japanese bombers (at one point simultaneously), the three men will last more than a month before Mac succumbs, leaving Phil and Louie to drift, sun-scorched and emaciated, for another 15 days or so. Yet the film’s attempts to convey the slow, arduous passage of time feel rushed and noncommittal, effectively cherry-picking the book’s more memorable nautical setpieces and adding a few temporal markers (“Day 18,” etc.), quick visual dissolves and the stately swells of Desplat’s score. Following a recent wave of intensely immersive survival stories (“All Is Lost” makes a particularly instructive comparison), “Unbroken’s” streamlined, checklist-style approach seems all the more rote and obligatory.

The sense that we’re getting the slightly watered-down version persists when Louie and Phil fall into Japanese hands and are sent to Omori, a POW camp in Tokyo. The two friends are forcibly separated, and for the film’s remaining hour or so, Louie will have a far less welcome companion in the form of Mutsuhiro Watanabe (Miyavi), aka “the Bird,” a terrifyingly sadistic Japanese army sergeant who immediately takes a special interest in this quietly defiant American prisoner, in whom he sees a flickering shadow of his own ferocious life force. Yet Watanabe’s affection manifests itself in the most brutal possible way, as he beats his favorite mercilessly with a kendo stick for minor or nonexistent infractions (the camera rarely flinches even when our hero does), at one point even forcing the other prisoners to line up and punch Louie in the face for no reason, one by one.

Jolie previously examined the dehumanization of war in her little-seen 2011 directing debut, “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” a muddled but provocative drama set in 1990s Bosnia-Herzegovina. “Unbroken” serves up a similarly relentless catalog of wartime woes — filthy conditions, crippling thirst and hunger, back-breaking labor, nonstop verbal and physical abuse, nasty injuries, ritualized humiliations, and the hopeless knowledge that an Allied victory will only bring about the prisoners’ execution. Yet there’s something unmistakably soft-edged, if not sanitized, about these PG-13 horrors, the accrual of which produces a curious sort of paradox by film’s end: What we’ve seen is at once plenty grueling and nowhere near grueling enough, on the basis of what Zamperini really went through. (“Where’re the maggots? Where’s the dysentery?” my screening companion whispered over the closing credits, unsatisfied by a relatively tasteful scene of Louie and his fellow inmates disposing of their presumably disease-ridden excrement.)

Any dramatic account of real-life events must of course filter and condense, yet several omissions in “Unbroken” are especially telling: We’re denied any real sense of the young Louie’s insatiable appetite for mischief; nor do we see him and his comrades conversing in secret code, or paying hilariously flatulent tribute to Japan’s Emperor Hirohito, or conceiving a desperate plot to murder Watanabe — or, barring that, inducing a crippling bout of diarrhea that puts the miserable sergeant out of commission for more than a week. Jolie sensitively conveys the solemn intimacy and tender camaraderie that arise among men at war, but she never captures these soldiers in all their bawdy, rough-and-tumble vigor and rebellious energy; nor does she evoke the fire in Zamperini’s belly that made him not just a survivor but a natural-born leader, his instincts and intellect as nimble as his feet.

To its credit, the movie doesn’t shy away from showing Louie praying his way through much of his ordeal, at one point promising to dedicate his life to God in the unlikely event that he survived. (He did, and he did.) Indeed, “Unbroken” is not above turning its subject into a sort of 20th-century Christ figure, namely when the Bird forces Louie to lift a heavy beam over his shoulders and hold the position for what feels like hours on end. Yet the dramatic seeds that are planted here never fully take root: Zamperini’s post-rescue conversion and his subsequent attempts at a moral reckoning with his captors are dispensed with in the closing titles, leaving you blinking at the unrealized potential of a longer, bolder and more spiritually inquisitive movie than this one.

Where Jolie’s restraint pays off is in her keenly concentrated focus on Louie’s interior journey; there is a brief cutaway to the distressed Zamperini family at a logical point in the narrative, but little in the way of contextualizing dates and details, and only the barest of allusions to the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the war draws to a close. All in all, given its subject, “Unbroken” is a remarkably quiet picture; the men’s dialogue exchanges tend toward the terse and sardonic, while the silences are often freighted with tension and anxiety, and Jolie wisely lets much of the drama play out in her actors’ unfailingly eloquent faces.

It’s been a while since a young male performer seized the screen with such startling force as O’Connell, whom festival and arthouse audiences may know from his excellent performances in the recent “Starred Up” and the forthcoming “’71.” The conception of his character here may leave something to be desired, but O’Connell’s acting has rarely been more soulful or delicate: Once more he has placed his extraordinary physicality in service of an intensely demanding role, requiring him to run like the wind, stand as still as a stone and undergo any number of weight fluctuations in between. Yet it’s also a performance built from innumerable fine-grained details — a suddenly clenched posture or a quickly downturned glance, to name two of Louie’s natural responses whenever the Bird appears.

Miyavi, a Japanese singer-songwriter making his bigscreen debut, was a smartly counterintuitive choice for the role, and if he never quite nails the perverse sexual rapture that Watanabe derives from the abuse he dishes out, the actor more than upholds his half of the film’s sinister psychological duet. (He also may help stir his fans’ interest in a picture whose matter-of-fact treatment of Japanese brutality will require especially careful handling in Asian markets.) Gleeson, going blond for a change, is excellent as the faithful friend who serves as an occasional spiritual guide to Louie; of the other soldier roles, Garrett Hedlund has the most substantial screen time as Louie’s ally Cmdr. John Fitzgerald.

Whether shooting on land, in air or at sea (with Australian locations ably standing in for all three), Deakins delivers unsurprisingly beautiful images of exceptional richness and clarity. The visuals achieve a particularly vivid sense of place in production designer Jon Hutman’s meticulous re-creations of Omori and Naoetsu, the camp to which Zamperini was transferred in March 1945; no less impressive is the fluidity of the camerawork in and around the tight interiors of the B-24s, enhanced considerably by the input of adviser Bob Livingstone. Even when the characters’ faces and bodies are smudged with blood, mud, soot and worse, the technical package is never short of immaculate.

Reviewed at Writers Guild Theater, Beverly Hills, Nov. 30, 2014. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 137 MIN.

• Production: A Universal release presented with Legendary Pictures of a Jolie Pas, 3 Arts Entertainment production. Produced by Angelina Jolie, Clayton Townsend, Matthew Baer, Erwin Stoff. Executive producers, Mick Garris, Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni. Co-producers, Michael Vieira, Holly Goline-Sadowski, Joseph Reidy.
• Crew: Directed by Angelina Jolie. Screenplay, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Richard LaGravenese, William Nicholson, based on the book by Laura Hillenbrand. Camera (color, Alexa digital, widescreen), Roger Deakins; editors, Tim Squyres, William Goldenberg; music, Alexandre Desplat; production designer, Jon Hutman; supervising art director, Charlie Revai; art directors, Bill Booth, Jacinta Leong; set decorator, Lisa Thompson; set designers, Nicholas Dare, Andrew Kattie, Ross Perkin; costume designer, Louise Frogley; sound, David Lee; supervising sound editors, Andrew DeCristofaro, Becky Sullivan; sound designers, Eric A. Norris, Jay Wilkinson; re-recording mixers, Frank A. Montano, Jon Taylor; special effects supervisor, Brian Cox; visual effects supervisor, Bill George; visual effects producer, Steve Gaub; visual effects, Industrial Light & Magic, Animal Logic, Lola VFX; stunt coordinator, Glenn Boswell; assistant director, Joseph Reidy; casting, Francine Maisler.
• With: Jack O'Connell, Domhnall Gleeson, Miyavi, Garrett Hedlund, Finn Wittrock, Jai Courtney, John Magaro, Luke Treadaway, Alex Russell, John D'Leo, Vincenzo Amato, Ross Anderson, C.J. Valleroy, Maddalena Ischiale. (English, Japanese, Italian dialogue)

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‘unbroken’: film review.

Jack O'Connell is a pleasure to watch in Angelina Jolie's accomplished second outing as a director

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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A great true story is telescoped down to a merely good one in Unbroken . After a dynamite first half-hour, Angelina Jolie ‘s accomplished second outing as a director slowly loses steam as it chronicles the inhuman dose of suffering endured by Olympic runner Louie Zamperini in Japanese internment camps during World War II. Wonderfully acted by Jack O’Connell in the leading role and guided with a steady hand by Jolie without unduly inflating the heroics or injecting maudlin cliches, this will be a tough film for some to take. But it also has strong appeal as an extraordinary survival story, and Laura Hillenbrand ‘s first-rate book, which inspired it, has not been on the best-seller lists for four years for nothing. A robust box-office future should be in store at home and abroad.

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Jolie’s spectacularly noncommercial first feature, the 2011 Bosnian war drama, In the Land of Blood and Honey , nonetheless proved that she could direct, an assertion more than confirmed by the vivid you-are-there opening of Unbroken . Without preamble, the film puts you on board a B-24, one of many sent out on a U.S. bombing raid of a Japanese-held island in the Pacific. There’s a real sense of the heaviness of the metal that somehow defies gravity as it grinds through the air, as well as an intense awareness of how all the men, from the guys in the cockpit, to the exposed gunners in their turrets, to the bombardier, Zamperini, depend upon each other to do their jobs. And, as the fast Zeroes approach and start firing on the Americans, the sound and speed of events are both pulse-quickening and sobering reminders of how arbitrary life and death are in combat.

The Bottom Line A well acted and visualized, if not fully rendered, telling of a fine book and a great life.

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Speed, in fact, is the essence of Zamperini’s life, to which flashbacks to his youth in Torrance, Southern California, attest. A little Italian-speaking troublemaker during the Depression, young Louie (a likeable C.J. Valleroy ) is pushed by his older brother Pete (first John D’Leo , then Alex Russell ) to take up track, where he becomes such a sensation that he eventually makes the 1936 U.S. Olympic team. The scene of the American’s race there is exciting, but for some reason Jolie decided to forgo the “Hitler moment” that will be remembered by readers of the book, wherein the Fuhrer and Louie had a brief encounter. Perhaps the director decided this would be distracting, but it’s hard not to feel it as a missed opportunity, in that Louie was actually face-to-face with the man who would set off the firestorm that would soon engulf him and the rest of the world.

The brilliantly staged crippled landing of the initial bombing expedition spookily foreshadows a second flight, a search for lost fliers in a patched together plane that, in a harrowing scene, makes a crash landing and breaks up in the middle of the Pacific. The only survivors are Louie, his blond pilot buddy Phil ( Domhnall Gleeson ) and a new crewman they don’t really know, Mac ( Finn Wittrock ), who array themselves on two yellow life rafts and hope for the best.

The least one can say is that their experience is rather more mundane than, but perhaps equally perilous to, that of the solitary lad lost at sea in Life of Pi . As the merciless sun bears down, the men become crispy red and try to keep talking to maintain their alertness. Sickened by raw gull meat, they are sometimes lucky enough to grab the odd sea creature, prompting Phil to observe that the Japanese eat their fish raw. Sharks swim menacingly around the rafts, and what the men hope is a friendly plane passes by, only to reveal itself as Japanese when it strafes them. Mac expires, but Louie and Phil manage to last 47 days before being picked up by a Japanese warship.

As realistically as the men’s deprivations are depicted in the film, the half-hour the film spends at sea simply can’t render the sheer, slow agony the book so effectively conveys —the doubts, struggles, delirium, mood swings, surpassing hunger and thirst, and constant sense of peril; surprisingly, the narrative goes a little slack during this central stretch. Still, despite the apparent hopelessness of their situation, Louie’s survivor’s spirit emerges unmistakably here, a tenacious bond with life he won’t easily relinquish. Phil has religion to get him through, Louie merely the memory of his brother’s corny slogan, “A moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory.”

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More than one moment of pain awaits him, unfortunately, at his next destination, a jungle hellhole where he and Phil are stashed in separate cells barely big enough to contain them. Unlike Hillenbrand’s book, the film is unable to convey the staggering misery they were forced to endure in the form of dysentery and other diseases, infinitesimal rations, enforced silence and perpetual fear. The only sort of punishment Jolie seems confident to present cinematically is of the corporal persuasion, which is what Louie encounters repeatedly at the hands of new camp commandant Wantanabe ( Miyavi ), nicknamed “The Bird,” a malicious sadist who zeroes in on the athletic American from the outset and never lets up, striking him repeatedly with his wooden stick, forcing fellow inmates to hit him in the face and otherwise abusing him for reasons both recreational and deeply twisted.

The large cell block in the new camp allows its inmates to talk, share rumors and otherwise fraternize in a way that takes a lot of the edge off despite their jeopardy. Nothing we see conveys the grave threat the men were constantly under (more than a third of all Allied POWs under the Japanese died in detention, compared to only one per cent under the Germans), and the tension is further alleviated by an interesting but comparatively relaxed interlude in which Louie is urged to broadcast on the radio, which at least serves the purpose of letting America and his family know that he’s still alive.

Transferred to yet another camp, Louie is pushed to the virtual breaking point, leading to a climactic scene which, the way Jolie stages it, throws off unmistakable crucifixion reverberations. These don’t seem specifically warranted by any other internal dramatic factors even if they do, in fact, relate to the religious conversion Louie underwent postwar, but are detailed in the book but are only mentioned onscreen in a passing end title.

One other great moment from the book that, oddly, doesn’t turn up onscreen is the American prisoners noticing a spectacular sight in the far distance, which turns out to be one of the atomic bomb explosions that soon brought the war to an end. It’s hard to imagine this wouldn’t have made for an arresting, even surreal visual interlude.

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What Jolie succeeds in doing to a substantial degree is representing her hero’s physical ordeal and his tenacious refusal to give up when it would have been very easy to do so. What she and her more than estimable quarter of screenwriters —  Joel and Ethan Coen , Richard LaGravenese and William Nicholson  — have not entirely pulled off is dramatizing the full range of Louie’s internal suffering, emotional responses and survival mechanisms. Nor have they made any of the secondary characters pop from the anonymous background of prisoner extras. In the great old studio days of the 1930s, writers, directors and and actors knew how to give supporting roles real character and sharp identities within a few seconds; such is emphatically not the case here.

Just recently recognized outside the U.K. due to his work in Starred Up and 300: Rise of An Empire , O’Connell is a pleasure to watch at all times here. He has energy, seems watchful and resourceful by instinct, is open to others and, crucially, seems like a man who, even when he doesn’t necessarily win, will nonetheless prevail. Always able to roll with the punches, physical and otherwise, he looks and sometimes behaves like a lively terrier.

The flashy role of the dreaded Bird is charismatically filled by Japanese singer Miyavi. Jolie could have done a bit more to build up the character’s mythology and the sense of dread he imparts. But the young actor, working mostly in English, has a beauty and good sense of timing that serve him well in this malevolent part.

The substantial aviation material looks quite real, no matter how effects-generated it may be, and Roger Deakins ‘ cinematography has a rugged elegance that, combined with the general play of light and dark, gives the film a richly satisfying palette. Jon Hutman ‘s production design and Louise Frogley ‘s costume designs display a proper sense of period verisimilitude as well as good, clean lines.

Production: Jolie Pas, 3 Arts Entertainment Cast: Jack O’Connell, Domhnall Gleeson, Miyavi, Garrett Hedlund, Finn Wittrock, Jai Courtney, John Magaro, Luke Treadway, Alex Russell, John D’Leo, Vincenzo Amato, Ross Anderson, C.J. Valleroy Director: Angelina Jolie Screenwriters: Joel Coen , Ethan Cohen, Richard LaGravenese, William Nicholson, based on the book by Laura Hillenbrand Producers: Angelina Jolie, Clayton Townsend, Matthew Baer, Erwin Stoff Executive producers: Mick Garris, Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni Director of photography: Roger Deakins Production designer: Jon Hutman Costume designer: Louise Frogley Editors: Tim Squyres, William Goldenberg Music: Alexandre Desplat Casting: Francine Maisler

PG-13 rating, 137 minutes

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Common Sense Media Review

Intense WWII biopic is inspiring but doesn't go deep enough.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Unbroken is Angelina Jolie's affecting, inspiring biopic about Louis Zamperini (Jack O'Connell), an Olympic athlete who finds himself tested all sorts of ways during World War II, culminating in a two-year stint in a Japanese prison camp. As expected based on the source material (the…

Why Age 14+?

Plenty of war-related violence. Early scenes show aerial combat, with planes and

Brief profanity includes a partial "f--k," "s--t," "damn," and "ass."

A teen boy takes swigs from liquor disguised in milk bottles. Some characters sm

Non-sexual nudity includes a scene in which prisoners are forced to undress, and

Any Positive Content?

The main character's intense determination helps him make it to the Olympics and

Zamperini managed to survive 47 days stranded at sea and then two years in a Jap

Violence & Scariness

Plenty of war-related violence. Early scenes show aerial combat, with planes and crewmen getting shot up and exploding. Then a trio of men is lost at sea in a small raft, struggling to survive; they take on sharks with their bare hands. The last act takes place in a Japanese POW camp run by a brutal sadist. The prisoners are beaten with sticks, threatened with swords, given meager rations, and forced into slave labor. They're also forced to undress; their bare bottoms are shown, and they cover their genitals with their hands.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

A teen boy takes swigs from liquor disguised in milk bottles. Some characters smoke cigarettes (accurate for the era). Adult soldiers drink beer.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Non-sexual nudity includes a scene in which prisoners are forced to undress, and viewers see their bare bottoms.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

The main character's intense determination helps him make it to the Olympics and, later, to survive as a POW, despite unbearably horrible circumstances. This is definitely a story about perseverance and triumph in the face of adversity.

Positive Role Models

Zamperini managed to survive 47 days stranded at sea and then two years in a Japanese POW camp because of his grit, resilience, and unbreakable will. Other characters are shown deteriorating, both physically and mentally.

Parents need to know that Unbroken is Angelina Jolie 's affecting, inspiring biopic about Louis Zamperini ( Jack O'Connell ), an Olympic athlete who finds himself tested all sorts of ways during World War II, culminating in a two-year stint in a Japanese prison camp. As expected based on the source material (the script was adapted from Laura Hillenbrand's book about Zamperini's life), there are plenty of scenes showing torturous abuse, including beatings, verbal harangues, and psychological attacks; some of it is quite difficult to watch. Aerial combat footage includes explosions, and Zamperini's time adrift on the ocean is also intense; at one point, he and his boatmates take on sharks with their bare hands. Language is infrequent and mild, but some early scenes portray a teenager smoking and drinking. Families may want to check out Hillenbrand's young adult adaptation of her bestselling book. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (9)
• Kids say (44)

Based on 9 parent reviews

Certainly not a feel good movie, but worth the watch.

What's the story.

Based on Lauren Hillenbrand's same-named book, UNBROKEN tells the true story of Louis Zamperini ( Jack O'Connel l), an Olympic athlete who impressed the world in the 1936 Olympics by running the final lap of the 5,000-meter event in a blazing 56 seconds. And later, after surviving 47 days adrift in the Pacific after a plane crash, he became a POW in Japan for two years. Remarkable and resilient, Zamperini survives the meanest challenges of life, including being stranded on a raft with two other crewmen, only to be picked up by a Japanese naval ship and spirited behind enemy lines, where he's beaten and tortured.

Is It Any Good?

This movie will undoubtedly leave audiences with nothing but admiration for the strong, noble Zamperini, and for this alone, it's worth watching. It's also notable for its lush cinematography and disciplined storytelling, which doesn't rely overly on swelling music and other tricks to make audiences feel with a capital F.

But for a film that does so much, Unbroken still falls short in some aspects. A footnote at the end hints at incomparable kindness that Zamperini bestowed upon his enemies, and yet this is told in words rather than images. It's a pity. And though it's clear Zamperini survives partly by holding on to the lessons his brother gave him -- words that echo through his head and that the audience hears -- it feels like there's much more depth to him that's left unexplored. And what of his pain? The film hints that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder of some kind; completely understandable, given the circumstances, but nothing makes a man even more unbroken than to have survived all so much while still maintaining the measure of grace that historians said Zamperini had -- but that's not quite reflected here. We would have loved to have seen the whole story.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Unbroken 's violent scenes. How do the prison camp abuse scenes make you feel? Did they need to be included so audiences could understand what Zamperini went through? How do they compare to the scenes of aerial combat and of the men adrift in the ocean? Which had the most impact on you, and why?

How does battle affect people? Do you think movies and TV shows depict it realistically? What are the consequences?

What do you think kept Zamperini persevering , despite all the challenges he faced? How is he a role model ? Do you think the film portrays him accurately?

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 25, 2014
• On DVD or streaming : March 24, 2015
• Cast : Jack O'Connell , Domhnall Gleeson , Jai Courtney
• Director : Angelina Jolie
• Inclusion Information : Female directors
• Studio : Universal Pictures
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : History
• Character Strengths : Perseverance
• Run time : 137 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : war violence including intense sequences of brutality, and for brief language
• Last updated : May 15, 2024

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Deep Focus: Unbroken

By Michael Sragow on December 3, 2014

From the opening shot of Unbroken —a gorgeous view of B-24 “Liberator” bombers flying in blue sky and dawn-tinged clouds—director Angelina Jolie and her ace cinematographer, Roger Deakins, prepare the audience for an epic. Their depiction of the dangers inside a B-24 will stun even viewers who’ve already devoured Laura Hillenbrand’s compulsively involving and insightful biography of World War II bombardier Louis Zamperini. It’s breathtaking to see Zamperini (Jack O’Connell) navigate the bomb bay catwalk, a mere nine inches wide, as the bay doors open wide beneath him and only his balance prevents him from plummeting into the ocean.

Taking off from Hillenbrand’s detailed renderings of bombing raids and attacks by Japanese Zeros, Jolie brings a fresh eye to aerial combat. Her emphasis on the American fliers’ close, chaotic conditions, and the gunners’ and bombardier’s exposure to open sea and air, primes a viewer’s senses. It raises hope that her kinetic and psychological instincts will bring to vivid, unruly life Hillenbrand’s turbulent saga about the son of Italian immigrants who became an Olympic runner and Olympian survivor, enduring an unprecedented number of days adrift in the Pacific and then two years of torture in Japanese prison camps.

Undoubtedly, Unbroken stems from Jolie’s genuine devotion to Zamperini’s story. But any filmmaker who celebrates “a triumph of the human spirit” risks falling into hagiography. And that’s what happens with Jolie’s Unbroken , which dramatizes Zamperini’s wartime ordeals as his Stations of the Cross. In the sequence at the center of the movie’s ad campaign, a savage Japanese commandant orders the emaciated hero at gunpoint to heft a weighty beam and hold it above his head. The resemblance to crucifixion becomes unmistakable when the beam slips behind his neck. Jolie can be a sensitive, even limpid director; she doesn’t flinch from atrocities, and doesn’t rub the audience’s noses in them, either. But in her worst piece of direction, the “destiny” themes of Alexandre Desplat’s clichéd score, complete with heavenly choirs, swell over the soundtrack as the crucifixion tableau melts into a closeup of Zamperini displaying grit and perseverance in his Olympic running days.  

Unbroken contains other equivalents to Biblical agonies. In a modern form of scourging, scores of Zamperini’s fellow prisoners are compelled to punch their comrade in the face. These tortures, though grounded in fact, are grueling rather than revelatory. This film’s ability to connect with audiences will probably depend on their love for the Good Book—or perhaps for Hillenbrand’s excellent best-seller. On its own, the movie grows increasingly one-dimensional, crippled by the ambition to be inspirational.

The problems begin when the filmmakers interrupt the opening sequence to flash back to Zamperini’s youth in Torrance, California. Rather than catch viewers up in the herky-jerky momentum of a speed demon’s early life, the film presents a series of emblematic moments. It introduces the impatient young Zamperini (C.J. Valleroy) tapping his feet at church, on a Sunday when his priest just happens to be telling his congregation to “accept the darkness,” “live through the night,” and “love thine enemy.” The movie depicts Louis as a very juvenile delinquent without exploring the reckless creative temperament he displays even as an inveterate thief. Every scene delivers a lesson. When his Italian-speaking father (Vincenzo Amato) gives Louis a spanking, he explains that he can’t tolerate a wayward child, because “They already don’t want us here.” The film’s didactic approach particularly diminishes the character of Louis’s brother Pete (played first by John D’Leo, then by Alex Russell), who coaches him in running to keep him out of trouble. Pete becomes a homily machine, churning out uplifting phrases like “If you can take it, you can make it” and “A moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory.” Of course, these sayings come in handy later. After Pete sends Louis off to the Olympics, the movie cuts back to the B-24 making a daredevil landing.

The four credited screenwriters (Joel and Ethan Coen, Richard LaGravenese and William Nicholson) telegraph ideas about fortitude, faith, and pride without piercing to the heart of hard-shelled characters. The filmmakers apparently feel that only Deep Thoughts and extravagant gestures can hold their own against bullets ripping into metal, sharks attacking life rafts, and kendo sticks scarring American flesh. Zamperini’s remarkable accomplishments at the 1936 Berlin Olympics enter the film in a brief interlude between two halves of a dire plane crash. The movie reduces Hitler’s Olympics to Louis’s 5000-meter race and a few poignant moments. These happen mostly via cuts back home to Torrance, where even Louis’s bête noire, the hometown cop, has his ear glued to the radio. ( Zamperini does get to cast a meaningful glance at a Japanese competitor. ) Louis intends to run in the 1940 Tokyo Olympics, but instead reaches Tokyo in the worst possible way.

The combination of action interruptus and over-sold, character-building vignettes prevents editors Tim Squyres and William Goldenberg from finding a satisfying rhythm. It also stymies performers like O’Connell from achieving any illusion of spontaneity. The connections between sections feel forced, as do the stated themes—most of all, the hero’s burgeoning religious faith. At one point, Zamperini interrupts the prayers of his best Army Air Force friend and pilot, “Phil” Phillips (Domhnall Gleeson), and says, “My mother does that sometimes.” After they crash into the Pacific, they float away from the wreckage on two lashed-together rafts, and Louis seeks a deal with God. If He really acts like a savior, Zamperini will devote his life to Him. As drama, it’s the strongest part of the movie : O’Connell does his most alert acting as he calms and humors a numb or hysterical third survivor, tail gunner “Mac” McNamara (Finn Wittrock), and takes charge of his wounded skipper (played by the sensitive, modestly stalwart Gleeson without an ounce of self-pity). But the attempt to portray religion as central to the bombardier’s survival, or to depict Louis himself as a spiritual symbol, holds no water. The bulk of the movie pays tribute to his stoic determination, not his trust in the divine; always a competitor, he simply refuses to break down and let his captors win. The movie devolves into an extended face-off between Zamperini and a Japanese sadist known as “the Bird,” who persecutes the hero across two camps. The spectacle is fiercely compelling—the human equivalent of an irresistible object meeting an immovable force—but both the immovable force and irresistible object are also impenetrable characters.

What’s befuddling is why Jolie and her backfield of writers transformed a book that’s full of texture and incident into such a single-minded film. They ignore colorful figures who could have fused the fractured chronology, like a Japanese émigré named Jimmie Sasaki. This seemingly innocent college friend of Louis’s at USC later served the Emperor as a mysterious bigwig at the secret interrogation center where the Japanese held Louis for a year and 15 days. (The film ignores Zamperini’s college days and collapses his withering experiences at that center into his time at two POW camps.) Even worse, the filmmakers give amazingly short shrift to the POWs’ mastery of theft and sabotage. Hillenbrand writes that at the Omori camp, located on an island in Tokyo Bay, “Deaths from illness and malnutrition had once been commonplace, but after the thievery school was created, only two POWs died, one from a burst appendix. And in a place predicated on degradation, stealing from the enemy won back the men’s dignity.”

Did Jolie and company fear that showing how “Two-foot long salmon would emerge from under shirts” and “three cans of oysters from a single boot” would bring the film too close to John Sturges’s The Great Escape ? Unbroken needs some of that film’s gallows comedy and improvisatory vitality. After all, one of the book’s central chapters is titled “Farting for Hirohito.” (“When the men were ordered to bow toward the emperor, the captives would pitch forward in concert and let thunderclaps fly for Hirohito.”)

Jolie’s film also could use the dynamic, sometimes satiric political drama of David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai , a POW movie that dared to contrast different kinds of excess in Japanese and British military pride. In Unbroken , it’s chilling to see a haughty, anonymous Japanese officer daintily eat dinner while overseeing Louis’s first real interrogation. But the movie doesn’t delve any deeper into the mores and biases of the Imperial Japanese Army, so there’s no resonance to the POWs’ theory that the Bird, the scion of a wealthy family, was incensed to the point of insanity when he entered service as a lowly corporal. Jolie doesn’t touch on his insecurity among his fellow Japanese and his resulting need to befriend and then brutalize his prisoners. Hillenbrand writes that when he “wasn’t thrashing POWs, he was forcing them to be his buddies,” hauling them into his room for late-night “tea parties,” where he’d lecture them on literature and hold concerts. Miyavi, a Japanese singer-songwriter, imbues the Bird with an ambiguous sexual presence. He expresses the erotic glee he gets from smashing Louis’s face and torso, but he can’t reveal the full extent of this villain’s nihilism and volatility. The Bird does call POWs his “friends,” and he wants Louis to congratulate him when he’s promoted to sergeant. But he remains an enigma. When Louis sneaks into the sergeant’s room after the war ends, the only clue he sees is a photo of the Bird as a boy with his military father. (You have to read the book to learn that this dad died or left his family when his son was young.)

As a movie, Unbroken wants to be the strong, silent type. But more precise colloquial dialogue might have kept the film from sliding into nightmarish stylization. (The best line—Phil’s copilot comparing flying a B-24 to “sitting in a living room and trying to fly a house”—is a clever variation on a quote in the book.) By the time the action moves to the Naoetsu POW camp on the west coast of Japan, everything seems horribly sudden; one moment the POWs button up against the bitter cold, the next they strip to the waist in baking heat. Reduced to slave labor, including hauling coal on their backs, the prisoners accumulate layers of soot until it’s a second skin.

The filmmakers chose not to dramatize that Louis was plotting with a dozen other officers to kill his nemesis, but never got the chance. It’s as if Jolie thought that any touch of derring-do would corrupt her film’s sanctity. Zamperini’s heroism was actually rooted not just in faith but also in guile, audacity, ingenuity, and even humor (working as a camp barber, he once shaved a prison guard’s eyebrows to look like Marlene Dietrich’s). Honoring his memory should also mean seeing him in the round. A film that was truer to life would also have been more entertaining. 

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Review by Brian Eggert December 29, 2014

Themes of endurance pulse through Unbroken , director Angelina Jolie’s straightforward film of Louis Zamperini’s life, which presents the wartime survivor as a Christ-like figure who perseveres to devote his life to God. An Olympic runner, who served in World War II as a bombardier, survived being lost at sea for 47 days, and then lasted two years in a Japanese POW camp, Zamperini and his life were detailed in Laura Hillenbrand’s best-selling 2010 biography. In Jolie’s hands, the story becomes a one-dimensional testament to Zamperini’s rare ability to suffer great tortures and prevail despite them. With battering symbolism and thin characterizations, the film’s overall conceptual approach resides in solemn adornment, respectful and humorless. To maintain a PG-13 rating, many of the more grotesque aspects of Zamperini’s survival story have been trimmed, but so too have his mischievous moments of camaraderie and, frankly, personality. The character becomes much like the film itself, admirable but vacant.

Everything about this Universal Studios release screams Oscar pandering, from its prestigious storytelling style to the delicately handled protagonist. Jolie’s film puts “Louie” Zamperini on such an exalted pedestal that her film fails to sculpt a three-dimensional figure; what audiences are left with is a detailed relief, an incomplete impression of a life story with all of the humanizing qualities left on the cutting room floor. Screenwriters Richard LaGravenese and William Nicholson wrote early adaptations, while the Coen Brothers (in writers-for-hire mode) wrote the shooting script. Even the Coens fail to mine what makes Zamperini tick, beyond his desperate need to survive. Jolie’s supporting crew includes a score by Alexandre Desplat and typically gorgeous cinematography by Roger Deakins, but no matter how good the film sounds and looks, it doesn’t connect in a profound way.

The film opens with a thrilling sequence where Louie (Jack O’Connell) and his comrades soar above the Pacific in a B-24 bomber and drop their payload, only to enter a nasty battle with Zero planes. Meanwhile, the film intercuts segments of Louie’s young life (now played by  C.J. Valleroy) growing up as an Italian immigrant in Torrance, CA alongside his brother (played by actors John D’Leo and Alex Russell) and parents (Maddalena Ischiale, Vincenzo Amato). Although he’s initially bullied as a boy, he’s recognized as a fast runner and soon dubbed “The Tornado of Torrance”. While training, his brother tells him “A moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory,” and therein foreshadows the rest of the film. Before Louie must test himself in ways he cannot yet imagine, he runs in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and places eighth. The film passes over how Louie actually shook hands with Adolf Hitler at the event, perhaps because it plays no significant role in what happens next.

On May 27, 1943, Louie, Capt. Russell Alan “Phil” Phillips (Domhnall Gleeson), and Sgt. Francis “Mac” McNamara (Finn Wittrock) are the only survivors when their B-24 crashes in the Pacific due to engine trouble. Only Louie and Phil survive the 47-day ordeal on the life raft, which involves storms, sharks, starvation, in-fighting, and a Japanese plane unleashing rounds upon them. Afterward, they’re sent to a POW camp in Tokyo under the cruel supervision of Mutsuhiro Watanabe (Takamasa Ishihara), aka “the Bird,” who takes particular joy in beating and humiliating our protagonist. Nonetheless, Louie endures, quietly—so quietly in fact that even O’Connell’s fine performance gives us little insight into what’s going on in Louie’s head during this period, save for his brother’s predictably repeated quote: “A moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory.” When Louie survives, he returns home to his family and the end titles fill in the rest of his life.

Unabashed hero worship is the major fault of Unbroken . Jolie spends so much screen time punishing Zamperini with his experiences, and therein wowing the audience with how any human being could endure such torment, that she forgets to give us a three-dimensional character. For example, Zamperini’s faith is mentioned briefly during his plight on the life raft, but nary hinted at until the end titles, which tell us how the man lived out his remaining years serving God until his death in July 2014 at 97. The opening credits cite Unbroken as being “a true story”, as opposed to the typical “based on a true story”, which would otherwise allow for the standard liberties with an adaptation to screen. But the film has been carefully constructed into a blind adoration instead of a worthy portrait; it captures events, but not people, not gradations. With equal measures of depth and breadth, Unbroken could have been a stirring epic. But even with a 2-hour-and-17-minute runtime, Jolie fails to provide audiences with insight into the brave humanity that allowed Louie Zamperini to endure.

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"An Inspiring Story of Redemption"

What You Need To Know:

(CCC, BBB, PPP, LL, VV, S, N, A, D, M) Very strong Christian, moral worldview extols courage, sacrifice, forgiveness, and holding onto hope, a family goes to church and a priest preaches about the light following the darkness and says to “love your enemy,” a woman prays for her mischievous son, a soldier prays to God and wears a cross necklace, hero promises to serve God if his life is spared and the closing titles say he kept his promise, served God and was able to forgive his captors because of his Christian faith, plus very strong patriotic values, including American soldier refuses to betray his country for better treatment; eight obscenities and three profanities, men empty out a latrine; strong and intense violence, planes are shot down in battle, men are brutally beaten with batons and bamboo sticks, whipped with belts and punched and kicked, main character sets his broken nose, men are shot, and a man’s fingernail torn hands are shown, but no gratuitous gore, though it’s still rough to see; a sexual reference, and main character ogles woman a few times, including from under some bleachers; some “pin ups” are seen in the background on some plane walls, naked prisoners are seen from both front and back, though frontal sensitive areas are covered; young boy secretly drinks liquor; light smoking of cigarettes and cigars; and, mischievous boy steals, though this is not condoned and he is punished, and prisoners of war dress as women for a play they are forced to put on for the guards.

More Detail:

UNBROKEN, the harrowing and inspiring true story about the life of Louis Zamperini, is an immensely moving adaptation of Laura Hillenbrand’s biography.

The movie begins during World War II on a B-24 bomber with Louie and his fellow crewmembers approaching a Japanese controlled island. As they approach, they engage with enemy fighter planes. The crew effectively fights off the enemy and completes the mission, but not without serious damage to the plane and some casualties. By some miracle, they make it back to base and land the plane.

In flashbacks, the younger, mischievous Louie gets himself into trouble easily in Torrance, Calif. His churchgoing Italian parents try to straighten Louie out through discipline, but it’s Louie’s older brother, Pete, that really pushes him to strive for more. With the encouragement of Pete, the determined and motivated Louie succeeds at track and eventually makes it to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

The unquenchable determination Louie shows on the track field carries into the war. After the last battle that destroyed their plane, Louie and a new crew are sent on a rescue mission on an old rickety plane. While over the vast ocean, the engines fail, and the plane crashes. Only three survive the crash and make it to a life raft: Louie, Mac and Phil. Stranded with very little supplies, Louie helps the men keep their sanity and composure amid life threatening elements even though he himself isn’t sure of their survival. In a crucial moment when a violent storm crashes over them, Louie cries out to God and promises to serve Him the rest of his life if he survives.

Survive Louie does, but not in the circumstances he wished. Found by the Japanese, the two surviving men become prisoners of war and are thrown into a war camp. Louie catches the eye of a Japanese guard, Mutsuhiro Watanabe, also known as “The Bird” by the prisoners. Louie’s mental endurance and resolve deeply angers The Bird, who becomes Louie’s chief tormentor, determined to break Louie’s spirit. Beaten, starved and stripped of all dignity, Louie remains unbroken against The Bird’s attacks.

Bringing the epic story of Louis Zamperini to the big screen proves to be easier said than done. The script is rich with subtext, but anyone familiar with Laura Hillenbrand’s well-researched book will likely wish Director Angelina Jolie had included more. Most notably missing is Louie’s eventual conversion to Christianity, which isn’t entirely forgotten, since it is mentioned in the closing titles. Though many will be disappointed with its exclusion, it’s understandable that the magnitude of Louie’s incredible story can’t entirely fit into an acceptable timeframe for one feature-length movie.

With the help of seasoned Cinematographer Roger Deakins, Angelina Jolie shows great skill at giving the movie life visually, ranging from the vast ocean landscapes to the intimate sufferings of the POWs. Jack O’Connell as Louie commands the screen nobly, and Japanese superstar Miyavi has his debut English-language acting role as the deeply disturbed and violent “Bird.”

UNBROKEN is undeniably inspiring on many levels. The endurance of not only Louie, but of so many of the soldiers who survived the POW camps in World War II is incomprehensible. At the most human level, UNBROKEN is a story about fighting for liberty amid injustice, uncompromising values through persecution, persevering when all is lost, and holding onto hope when there seems to be none left. These aspects are immensely inspiring, but they are given an even firmer foundation when seen through the lens of the Gospel. Whether it be the priest preaching to love your enemy, Louie’s mother praying fervently for her son, a Christian soldier praying, or Louie making his promise to God, Christian faith is present in UNBROKEN from beginning to end. The final titles reveal that Louie forgave his captors because of his eventual faith in God through Jesus Christ.

UNBROKEN is by no means an easy movie to watch, but it never becomes gratuitous with its violence. In fact, even the foul language is subdued compared to most movies. That said, the intensity and brutality of the POW camps warrant an extreme caution.

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Unbroken (2014) Review

UNBOWED, UNBENT, UNBROKEN

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?

As a child in the 1920s, Louie Zamperini (Jack O’Connell) was subjected to bullying and ridiculed for his Italian immigrant heritage amongst his peers, creating a troublesome boy that lacked self-discipline and guidance. With his brother’s help, Louie discovers his passion for track running, miraculously transforming the wayward youth into an elite runner that participated in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Eventually, with the outbreak of WWII arriving shortly after, Louie’s track running days are cut short, enlisting in the Air Force and bonding with his fellow airmen crew such as Phil (Domhnail Gleason), Hugh (Jai Courtney), and Mac (Finn Wittrock) before a fatal plane crash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Set adrift in a life raft, Louie perseveres through this atrocious trail, sustaining his hunger to live and his refusal to succumb to the elemental laws of the ocean. Louie is eventually rescued, but by the Japanese, who, in turn, imprisoned him in work camp with the sadistic officer Wantanbe (Takamasa Ishihara), nicknamed “The Bird”, making his pleasurable duties to break Louie’s spirit.

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.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Unbroken , Angelina Jolie’s sophomore directorial movie, will have mixed reviews and opinions with some who will love it completely, while others will think it’s simply okay. To me, I fall somewhere in between those two, but more on the positive side. The feature carries and delivers a powerful narrative that’s undeniable awe-inspiring on-screen with remarkable feats, both from its actors and cinematography. What weights this dramatized war feature down is in its failure to fully capture Zamperini’s miraculous life story, most notably in leaving out crucial element in his tale, which leaves film’s narrative incomplete and unable to connect the dots to the man behind the hero. Whether you agree with my review or not about this movie, it’s virtually impossible to not overlook the courageous efforts that the real Louie Zamperini displayed during the course of his life. Louie, who sadly passed away several months ago at the age of ninety seven, will be remembered for generations to come, regarded as a hero of his time and an inspiration to millions everywhere.

4.1 Out of 5 (Recommended)

Released on: december 25th, 2014, reviewed on: january 3rd, 2015.

Unbroken  is 138 minutes long and is rated PG-13 for war violence including intense sequences of brutality, and for brief language

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Bravo bravo bravo it was a super review. I totally agree with you that there should have been much more in the movtev about the religious redemption of his life .it was a great ending about a super hero.

I like these kinds of films, so I will definitely seek this out. Cheers for the review.

Thanks. Yeah, this movie was pretty good. I liked the book.

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Unbroken Film Analysis

Unbroken is a 2014 American film based on a biography by Laura Hillenbrand about a man called Louis Zamperini. “Unbroken” opens with such a powerfully meaning and a serious of head forward sequence of combat events that portrays the film’s strengths and weaknesses. The meaning behind this film sends such a positive message. Zamperini’s story is almost not believable and the movie cannot possibly hit everything that’s so valuable to the story itself. The movie itself could have at least stretched to 3 hours, but today’s audience doesn’t have the patience.

The movie was created not to fail, and it doesn’t but the book was so much better.

Angelina Jolie had to make decisions about what to include in a two-hour film, so there was so much missed information that was in the book.

Louie Zamperini is a troubled kid who is stealing food and has a dream of hopping on a train and leaving town one day.

It introduces Zamperini (C.J. Valleroy) at church, on a Sunday when his priest is talking about “accept the darkness,” “live through the night,” and “love thine enemy.” Every scene delivers an important lesson. His older brother, Pete, who turns his life around, that leads to Louie’s passion for running he ends up joining the track and field team at his school. Louie breaks high school records, he goes to be in the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936. His running career is then put on hold when the 2nd World War comes to play.

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“ Amazing as always, gave her a week to finish a big assignment and came through way ahead of time. ”

Louie enlists in the army corps and becomes a bombardier who is responsible for dropping bombs. During a rescue mission, Louie’s plane crashes in the ocean. Only he and 2 other passengers make it to the rafts. It shows the character out of his normal everyday world and into the traumatic new “adventure” world but also believable. Louie and the other surviving man are found and captured by the Japanese.

The movie was everything I’d hoped it would be after reading the book by Laura hillenbrand. The only thing that really got to me was that it did not continue with the character’s story about his understanding of Jesus becoming his Savior after years of suffering from PTSD and alcoholism, and how his life changed drastically after that. Angelina Jolie did a wonderful job as director. It looked as though she was emotionally touched as she spoke about the faith and power behind the story.

In many scenes Louie embodies the trait of resilience. He has the ability to recover from and respond fast. Not letting the plane crash, the starvation, or the sharks break his mind or spirit, Louie separates himself from his partners, diving into the ocean to save himself rather than giving up and leaving his outcome to be unintended.

Sooner or later, Louis falls into the hands of the Japanese military. He character opens as hopeful, determined, withdrawing while in the prison camp, he becomes a much more of a lonely figure.

Jolie brings a fresh eye to combat she ships a light to what actually happens during the time of war and what actually happens to the men and women that get captured by the enemy. Undoubtedly, The film leans towards Jolie’s devotion to The story itself. The film presents a series of remarkable moments.

I would recommend this film to anyone who is looking for an inspirational piece of art. Unbroken was a film that I enjoyed from beginning to end. It’s based on a true story and it gets into great detail of Louis Zamperini’s life. It gets into such great detail and it send a message to society that pain is only temporary you just have to believe in yourself and push forward.

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Unbroken Movie Review

Essay by Candice Wang   •  March 27, 2017  •  Book/Movie Report  •  513 Words (3 Pages)  •  1,077 Views

Essay Preview: Unbroken Movie Review

This film is based on real events, during the second world war. It’s telling us a story about the protagonist experiencing extremely hard times, including floating on the sea for over a month, and being a prisoner in the Japanese army. Even so, the movie is still covered in a peaceful atmosphere. The other two movies are both based on normal lives, showing us the struggles of careers.

The story developed slowly, filled with pieces of words that are about god, family and friendship, which have a sharp contrast to the background—war. The character had over 5 comrades at the start, then he gradually lost each one of them through all the disasters—plane crash, starvation on the endless sea, and Japanese army’s cruel torture. The character took us on his journey the whole time, we followed him from the USA, followed him back to his childhood memory.

The director wants to show us the raw cruelty of war and the bravery of soldiers.

The one thing that moved me is the sentence that one prisoner said: the best way to win is to live till our nations’ victory. Because of this belief, all of the prisoners seem to be obeying the commands, although it was not a pleasant thing to do. The version I usually see is: they refuse to obey the commands, and fight against Japanese. If the main character did this, he might have been leading some of his folks, and began a grand escape, out of the camp, and find an American plane.

My own perspective of this film: stories of camp are usually best at sculpting a character, dig for potential power of the humanity, but this film only showed the top layer of the cruelty of World War II, it is long and had little meaning. The movie was supposed to show us how the character changes through torture from time to time, but instead it showed us a Japanese soldier who is overly obsessed with Zamperini. At the beginning part, it started showing pieces of Zamperini’s memory of his childhood, and everything started to become warm, but suddenly this stopped, and turned into a different type of movie as they go into the water, it felt like a survival documentary, but it ended when they landed in Japan. The storyline is really abrupt.

At the beginning of this film, there was a plane fight which reminded me of the movie "Surprising attack Pearl Harbour”. Then the recalling of the naughty Italian boy remined me of “Malena”. After that, the kid’s running reminded me of Forrest Gump. Then the rescuing of comrades-in-arms reminded me of “ Black Hawk Down”. Then the plot began to look like “ Robinson Crusoe”. After they got caught by the Japanese soldiers, it reminded me of “ The Shawshank Redemption” as I thought they would escape from the jail. At last, I realized that it is a biography.

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Unbroken (2014)

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Official Discussion: Unbroken [SPOILERS]

Synopsis: American World War II hero Louis "Louie" Zamperini, a former USA Olympic track star, survives a plane crash in the Pacific, spends 47 days drifting on a raft, and then more than two and a half years living in several Japanese prisoner of war camps.

Director: Angelina Jolie

Writers: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Richard LaGravenese, William Nicholson

Jack O'Connell as Louis "Louie" Zamperini

C.J. Valleroy as young Louis Zamperini

Domhnall Gleeson as Russell "Phil" Phillips

Miyavi as Mutsuhiro "The Bird" Watanabe

Garrett Hedlund as John Fitzgerald

Finn Wittrock as Francis "Mac" McNamara

Jai Courtney as Hugh "Cup" Cuppernell

Luke Treadaway as Miller

Travis Jeffery as Jimmy

Jordan Patrick Smith as Cliff

John Magaro as Frank A. Tinker

Alex Russell as Pete Zamperini

Maddalena Ischiale as Louise Zamperini

Morgan Griffin as Cynthia Applewhite

Savannah Lamble as Sylvia Zamperini

Sophie Dalah as Virginia Zamperini

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 53%

Metacritic Score: 48/100

After Credits Scene? No

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Tuesday, December 23, 2014

'unbroken' movie review: an incredible story made dull and bland.

2 comments:

It's crazy seeing a great movie receiving a C rating. I think this review deserves an F. Movie critics are a bit worthless.

You can just say you like shitty movies and that's fine. The real story is incredible, but this movie blows ass.

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Reviewed by: John Decker CONTRIBUTOR

Importance of faith , hope , courage, self-sacrifice, perseverance, and FORGIVENESS

“Hate is self-destructive.” (Louis Zamperini, CBS interview, “A war hero's ‘Unbroken’ bond with his biographer”)

Japanese WWII prisoner of war camps / war crimes

About Louis Zamperini— His wife and he became born-again Christians after attending Billy Graham crusades. “He said as soon as he made his decision for Christ he forgave his captors and never had another nightmare again. Later Graham helped Zamperini launch a new career as a Christian inspirational speaker.”

FEAR, Anxiety and Worry —What does the Bible say? Answer

What is REPENTANCE ?

“Survival. Resilience. Redemption.”

“U nbroken” is based on the life of Louis Zamperini, an American WWII war hero who passed away this year (1917–2014). Mr. Zamperini certainly had an exceptional life, not the least of which is his exceptional story of repentance and grace which occurred after enduring so much at the hands of the Japanese in concentration camps. That story of grace is film-worthy indeed, but you’re not going to get it in the film “Unbroken”. For all of what this movie contains, good or ill, it does not contain that story of grace but meagerly, in some text, at the very end of the film.

For me, personally, the disappointment of not getting his whole story, not just from a religious point of view but also from a film-goers perspective, was pronounced. I felt like I was dropped off at the end of Act II in a three act play. Does the film contain the story of Mr. Zamperini’s redemption to some extent? Well, the way it starts off, you might expect it to. Let’s just say that it does not write God out of his life entirely, and you certainly get some religious content here and there. But the magnificent story of Mr. Zamperini’s redemption is lost in “Unbroken”.

If you’re planning on seeing “Unbroken,” I highly recommend reading this article first.

The portrayal of war , endurance, torture and survival in this film are fairly well done. For the record, my wife liked it a lot more than I did. In “Unbroken,” you do get a good dose of what Mr. Zamperini’s life was like, though I do not find the way in which the story was told to be very compelling, which is surprising, considering the contributions by the award-winning Coen brothers.

The style of violence in “Unbroken” is largely not gory. The beatings are painful to behold, and the portrayal of war and suffering is tough to stomach, but the blood and guts are tempered for this genre.

As for sexuality, there are some Vargas pin-up posters, that is the largest extent of female body portrayal. At more than one point, a boy is looking up women’s skirts. There is not a whole lot of male nudity, perhaps none, with the exception of one very long scene which contains full backside nudity of two men. Part of the scene even flashes to the front where male genitalia may be visible for a short moment.

As for profanity, this film contains, in most scenes, as much of that as one might expect from a war film. It does not shy from regular cursing, including using the Lord’s name in vain a few times (GD, Jesus, etc.).

Substances: There is a little smoking and drinking, but it is not a large part of the film.

For me it is truly tragic, what was left out of this movie—the story of grace . Young Zamperini’s mischievousness is an all too familiar illustration of the human spirit which God made. It is my conviction that the mischievousness of young men reflects how God made them—uncovering falsehoods, creating transparency on the fly and defying the norm. The sinful aspect of it all does not negate that we were made in His magnificent image. We, His creation, may fit no more well in a box than He does.

“In October 1950, Zamperini went to Japan, gave his testimony, and preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ through an interpreter.” The colonel in charge of the Sugamo Prison encouraged any of the prisoners who recognized Zamperini to come forward and meet him again. “Zamperini threw his arms around each of them. Once again, he explained the Christian Gospel of forgiveness to them. The prisoners were somewhat surprised by Zamperini's genuine affection for those who had once ill-treated him,” and Zamperini reports that “some gave their lives to Christ.”

In God’s sight, it is totally unacceptable for a Christian to refuse to forgive others. Remember the parable of the master who forgave a guilty man who owed him an amount so enormous that he could never hope to pay it back? The master completely forgave him. But, afterward, that forgiven man roughly grabbed another who owed him a very small amount, and allowed him no time to repay—showed him no mercy—and threw him into prison. When the master heard of this, he was FURIOUS and his punishment was swift.

In that parable , the Master represents God. And the forgiven man represents you—if you have similarly FAILED to forgive another, when Christ’s blood has paid your unpayable debt to God, and He has forgiven you for everything you have ever done wrong —and for your continuing failures to do everything that is truly right and good .

Therefore, we have a responsibility to be humble , forgiving, loving servants of God.

“In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins , for without it no human fellowship…can survive. Don’t insist on your rights, don’t blame each other, don’t judge or condemn each other, don’t find fault with each other, but accept each other as you are, and forgive each other every day from the bottom of your hearts…” —Dr. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

Unfortunately, for lack of the whole story, the story can be lost altogether. One writer for Boston.com remarked in her review of the book “Unbroken,” that “Finding God is an all too familiar ending. I’d prefer to remember Zamperini as a child who rigged church bells to chime the way he wanted.” Wrong, Maria. Young Zamperini is the man that God made. Old Zamperini is the man that God renewed.

And so utterly, this movie was for me, a disappointment.

Violence: Heavy to extreme / Profanity: Heavy—“G*d-d*mn,” “Jesus,” “God,” “Oh G*d,” “Oh my G*d,” “d*mn” (5), f-words (2), “son of a b*tch,” s-words (3), “*ss” / Sex/Nudity: Heavy

“When Zamperini turned 81, he was invited to carry the flame at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. He ran through the streets of Naoetsu, where he had once marched as a prisoner. This time, he was there as a free man—carrying the torch of the ancient Greeks in his right hand and the sacred fire of Christ in his heart.” (by Tonya Stoneman, In Touch Ministries)

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The Spy America Left to Rot

In “Prisoner of Lies,” Barry Werth tells the story of a young C.I.A. operative who spent two decades waiting out the postwar era in a Chinese jail cell.

The C.I.A. officer John T. Downey at a news conference in New Britain, Conn., shortly after his release from incarceration in China in 1973. Credit... Bob Child/Associated Press

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Kevin Peraino is the author, most recently, of “A Force So Swift: Mao, Truman, and the Birth of Modern China, 1949.”

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PRISONER OF LIES: Jack Downey’s Cold War , by Barry Werth

At the height of the Cold War, C.I.A. pilots carried a silver dollar attached to a poison-tipped stickpin. Their handlers encouraged them, if their planes went down, to use the pin on themselves to avoid betraying their country.

Of course, not every spy heeded this advice. In the spring of 1960, the Soviet military shot down the American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers and captured him alive, leaving President Dwight D. Eisenhower caught in a quandary. His administration initially issued a false cover story but quickly regretted it. “When the world can entertain not the slightest doubt of the facts,” Eisenhower later recalled, “there is no point trying to evade the issue.” Less than two years after Powers was captured, he crossed the Glienicke Bridge from East Germany to freedom as part of a prisoner swap.

Yet amid the hubbub of Powers’s release, another American spy continued to languish, largely forgotten, in foreign captivity. Jack Downey, a Connecticut-bred and Yale-educated nephew of the singer Morton Downey , was 22 in 1952, when Chinese troops shot down his C-47 over Manchuria during the Korean War.

Although Downey confessed his identity as a C.I.A. operative to his captors after 16 days, the U.S. government refused to acknowledge his mission for more than two decades. Downey would ultimately become the longest-held prisoner of war in American history, until President Nixon negotiated his release and Downey finally departed his cell in 1973 wearing a Mao suit and a Boston Red Sox baseball cap.

“Prisoner of Lies,” Barry Werth’s thoughtful and engaging narrative of Downey’s life and captivity, gallops along from Downey’s school days in the 1940s all the way through the rise of Donald Trump as a public figure in the 1980s. (Downey died in 2014 .)

Werth, the author of several other histories and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for “ The Scarlett Professor ,” is an elegant writer, and a virtue of this book is that it situates Downey’s personal drama in the context of his times, which stretch across the American Century and beyond. It is a reminder of just how intertwined foreign and domestic policies can be; we see in detail how the populist xenophobia of the McCarthy era, the excesses of the Cultural Revolution and the student protests of the Vietnam War conditioned and confined the maneuvering of spies, diplomats and politicians.

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