Billy Nguyen/Staff Reporter
Angelina Jolie’s wartime drama, Unbroken, centers around Louis Zamperini, an Olympic athlete who becomes a Japanese prisoner of war during World War II, following his struggle for survival. From the moment I saw the trailer in September, I was immediately hooked and could not wait to see it. I am happy to say that the movie met all of my expectations. All the components of the movie from the actors, the music, and the “set design” all came together for a movie that was one of my favorites of 2014.
In the movie, Zamperini (Jack O’Connell) is an American Airman during World War II. His North American B-24 experiences engine failure while conducting a search and rescue operation and ditches in the Pacific Ocean. After surviving on the open sea for 47 days, he is captured by the Japanese Navy and is sent to a Prisoner of War camp in Japan. From then on, the movie follows Zamperini’s struggle of survival as a prisoner of the Japanese Army.
O’Connell did a fantastic job playing Zamperini and his performance was extremely moving. Throughout the movie, Zamperini faced tremendous physical and mental abuse and O’Connell helped capture Zamperini’s emotion and pain. Takamasa Ishihara played Mutsushiro Watanabe, a high ranking Japanese officer who controlled the prisoner of war camp at which Zamperini was held. Ishihara’s performance as Watanabe was excellent as well because Ishihara added a lot of depth to his character. Rather than being just a hate-filled protagonist, Watanabe’s rage is fueled from his disgraced military career and his hatred towards Zamperini due to his constant defiance and resilient personality. As the movie progresses, Watanabe gradually becomes more and more afraid of Zamperini which leads him to relentlessly attack Zamperini in hopes of “breaking” his spirit.
For Unbroken being a period-accurate war movie, there wasn’t as much action or violence when compared to other movies like Fury which also was released in 2014. The movie is more of a drama, rather than an action movie. Because of this, the movie itself isn’t as fast-paced which explains its nearly two-hour run time.
While two-hours may seem like a long time, each “act” of the movie received adequate run time and the pacing was on point. In the beginning of the movie, we have occasional flashbacks of Zamperini’s childhood to show the audience how he progressed from “being a kid on the street” to becoming an Olympic athlete. After becoming stranded at sea, the flashbacks seem to stop all together, which was a slight let-down for me because they were so predominate in the beginning of the movie. This however, did not take away from the movie though I would’ve liked to have more insight into Zamperini’s life.
In the end, Unbroken was an awesome movie. Almost everyone who I spoke to said that they enjoyed the movie, and it’s because of their recommendations that I went ahead and saw the movie.
Unbroken reminds me of a similar movie called Rescue Dawn which was released in 2006. Much like Unbroken, Rescue Dawn is the story of how American airman Dieter Dengler survived being a Vietnamese Prisoner of War during the Vietnam War. I highly recommend watching Rescue Dawn since it was also based on a true story.
Unbroken was really an inspirational movie and I feel sorry that not many people, like myself, knew about Zamperini’s story until the movie was produced. Unbroken’s main message is that “if [you] can take it, [you] can make it.” We all should keep fighting for what we believe in even if the odds are against us.
