“Enjoyable enough – but rather over-stretched and narratively confused.”
SPOILER FREE I was surprised and anxious when first finding out that Angelina Jolie was going to do direct Unbroken – seems to be more and more actors wanting to have a go at something different recently. I’ve always liked the Jack O’Connell has carried his performances – first off as Puke in Shane Meadow’s masterpiece ‘This Is England’ and then in Series 3 & 4 of Channel 4’s ‘Skins’. He’s versatile and skilled in what he does, and there’s nothing but admiration for that. ‘Unbroken’ is a film that is so well intentioned and means only to tell a true story that inspires audiences and gives them a new insight into the cruelty that many faced by the Japanese in WW2. The greatest shame, is that despite the great intentions behind what the film is trying to say, it isn’t particularly successful.
Throughout the first hour there’s this constant battle between the past, middle and present that seems to go up and down like a yoyo without much explanation of how these flashbacks are really reverent to the film’s narrative.Some sequences highlight Louie’s (Jack O’Connell) past life as a runner and what inspired him, but most seems to be things that don’t add up to an awful lot – unfortunately it felt like the film was trying too hard to impress, and overstaying itself ever so slightly. The action sequences are realistic enough, but seem somewhat censored and downplayed. After the bombardier goes down, some of the crew that survive are stranded on a raft for many days, and boy! Does it go on and on and on… I understand that in order for the audience to understand a slow passing of time, we need to stay there for some considerable amount of time, but this felt like we were there for too long.
After eventually reaching the camp in which Louie is treated very cruelly by the Japanese corporal Mutsuhiro “Bird” Watanabe, the film starts to find its feet a little. When you’re introduced to more characters and get a feel for exactly what is going on, then I started to feel a lot more involved. The biggest difficulty was that Louie wasn’t really a likeable or interesting character – and when the lead protagonist in a film isn’t either of those things, the film loses the plot. Despite the censored cruelty, I found myself not caring for many of the characters because they weren’t particularly developed well.
All in all, it’s not a terrible film. Jack O’Connell is great as always, and I thought it was mildly enjoyable – but with censored violence that distracts and downplays the film’s harsh reality and a serious lack of character depth, it’s no where near as good as it could have been.
★★★
Hudson-Cook 