2 stars (out of four)
I'm never in favor of titles with subtitles (like "Exodus: Gods and Kings"), but I'm especially glad that "Unbroken" isn't called "Unbroken: The Louis Zamperini Story." Because, disappointingly, this isn't the Louis Zamperini story. It's a war film without the necessary entry points and narrative engines, leading to a shockingly out of balance story from writers (the freakin' Coen brothers) whose plots normally have a masterful touch.
"Unbroken" comes from real life, of course, adapted by the Coens, co-writers Richard LaGravenese and William Nicholson and director Angelina Jolie from Laura Hillenbrand's book "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption." It certainly would seem to have a great hook for a movie: Olympic athlete-once the fastest high school runner in American history-faces even bigger challenges while stranded in the ocean and imprisoned by the Japanese during WWII.
Except we learn so little about Louie (Jack O'Connell, very good here and in the recent "Starred Up") that the film, focusing mostly on his 45 days floating in a raft and daily agony as a POW, has no internal life, no subplot, to enhance our experience. There is a young man we only briefly see as a trouble-making kid whose life literally gets on track once he begins running competitively, before suddenly, he's high in the sky fighting for his country.
The film absolutely captures the misery of life in a detention camp. I exclaimed out loud when Louie and his fellow soldiers at sea (Domhnall Gleeson, Finn Wittrock) yank a shark from the water and kill it for food. On some level it's nice that Jolie and the writers avoid the hackneyed scenes of families in denial about impending military service and big speeches about how "It's something I have to do." But "Unbroken" has no sense of Louie's life outside two things his brother (Alex Russell) said to him and everything that happened after his plane crashed. How did he enlist in the first place? What did he think about during his time away? How did he make it through? Basic storytelling and detail here, people.
Movies like "Unbroken" don't work if you lose sight of what makes them unique. Instead it's just any old POW tale, less resonant than "Rescue Dawn" and inspiring only on the surface-because that's all there is.
Watch Matt review the week's big new movies Fridays at 11:30 a.m. on NBC.
mpais@tribune.com
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