Unbroken

Olympic athlete and war survivor Louis Zamperini's long life ended peacefully on July 2nd, 2014. Before then, Laura Hillenbrand documented said epic life in her 2010 book, Unbroken. That book is now the basis of Angelina Jolie's 2nd film as director, also titled Unbroken.

Zampeirini (Jack O'Connell) grew up the son of Italian immigrants. After a childhood of mischief making, his brother Pete (Alex Russell) inspired him to greatness. He successfully tried out for a regional track team and made it to the 1936 Olympics.

Those events above are flashbacks in the film's bigger story. In it, Louis serves his country in World War II as a bombardier. On a routine mission, Louis's Lemon plane goes kaput and crashes into the Ocean. Only two other crew members survive the crash with him. He and his friends survive in lifeboats on shark-infested waters for 47 days. Only one crew member survives with Louis by the time the Japanese navy finds them.

For the next two years, Louis and his other crew member (but mostly Louis) are prisoners of war. Their camp commander is Mutsuhiro Watanabe (Miyavi), a man who will find any excuse to beat up Louis. Louis has to stay tough if he's to survive the ordeal.

Four writers are credited on the film. It's more like three writers considering that two of the four are the always together Joel and Ethan Coen. The other two are Richard LaGravenese and William Nicholson. Their screen story is a juggling act about to collapse.

Let's start with some ending captions. It said how Zamperini had struggled with PTSD for years after his interment and eventually made peace with his captors. Why's that the ending caption? That's a great movie right there! The interment scenes, which make up a bulk of the film, should have been flashbacks. Kind of a missed opportunity.

And why did they give Watanabe a hint of sympathy near the end instead of anytime before then? He kind of wants Zamperini to respect him but the audience can't oblige him. His favorite tactic ("(Don't) Look at me!" *Whack!*) is so protracted it kind of turns into a running gag.

It was not all a loss. Alexandre Desplat has yet another good score, one which I had time to experience as my theater's sound system muffled quite a bit of the dialogue. The art department crafted incredible recreations of the 1940's. Roger Deakins' cinematography was rich and colorful as always.

Jolie personally knew Zamperini, which led her to this project. So while I may fault Unbroken for being a wobbly juggling act, at least it was a well-intentioned one.