Unbroken
2014
***
Director: Angelina Jolie
Cast: Jack O'Connell, Domhnall Gleeson, Miyavi, Garrett Hedlund, Finn Wittrock, Jai Courtney, Luke Treadaway, Spencer Lofranco, Travis Jeffery, Jordan Patrick Smith, John Magaro
Before WW2, Louis Zamperini was a promising athlete who ran in the Berlin Olympics. A few years into the war, he was a bombardier who survived a plane crash at sea, only to be sent to a POW camp in Japan. This inspirational true story about perseverance and determination is based on Laura Hillenbrand's 2010 book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, and it took four screenwriters (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Richard LaGravenese, and William Nicholson ) to adapt it to the screen. Angelina Jolie's harrowing drama is beautifully staged and well-acted, but overlong and somewhat monotonous. It becomes clear that Zamperini endured a tremendous amount of physical pain and suffering, but we never get inside his head to understand what he was thinking or how he managed to survived his ordeal. The film is divided into three distinctive sections, which could be described as Chariots of Fire, Life of Pi, and The Bridge on the River Kwai.
