Unbroken - Review

Unbroken.

Unbroken is the second film directed by Angelina Jolie starring Jack O'Connell as Louie Zamperini an Olympic runner who ends up fighting in World War II as a bombardier. After a near fatal crash landing that claimed most of his crew, Zamperini and two other survivors spend 47 days out in middle of the Pacific Ocean. After 47 days they get rescued by a Japanese boat and get taken prisoner and held in detainment.


Jack O'Connell's portrayal of Zamperini was phenomenal as was Mutsuhiro "The Bird" Watanabe played by Takamasa Ishihara also known by his stage name Myavi who is a singer-songwriter from Japan making his first venture into international acting with Unbroken.

First off, this movie is fantastic and running at about 2 hours and 20 minutes, the fact that I never even thought about glancing at my watch is feat in its own right. There's really not much to say about this movie because it's hard to talk about without giving spoilers but it's not only as good as it looks, it's better. Unbroken is enjoyable, inspirational and one of the best movies of the year.

Replay Value: 2/5, Unbroken has a pretty low replay value because much of the movie hinges on the "what's going to happen next?" question running through your brain; it also has pretty disturbing moments that you would rather not see again. This is similar to last year's 12 Years a Slave in that it's not a movie I'll watch very often but it's a movie I believe everyone should see.

Rating: 4.5/5

Somewhat of a Rant: I'm extremely happy that Angelina Jolie was the director to bring this story to life because as a 2014 survey discovered, only 6% of major movies are directed by females. In the 86 years of the Academy Awards only four times has a female director been nominated for Best Director and only once has a female won: Kathryn Bigelow in 2009 for The Hurt Locker. Of all of the major movies scheduled for release in 2015 only two notable films are being directed by women: Fifty Shades of Grey by Sam Taylor-Wood and Pitch Perfect 2 by Elizabeth Banks. These two films come from a list of major and nationally planned film releases that didn't consider indie movies in its list. Unbroken may be the catalyst that Hollywood needed in bringing out more women to direct more films as it has a well known member of Hollywood, Angelina Jolie, at the helm; and it was released on Christmas Day which is one of the biggest release days of the year in cinema and usually means a film is worthy of Oscar buzz. Jolie winning Best Director for this would be huge as she would be the second female ever to do so and the second in just 5 years which hopefully is a trend we will continue to see. This movie is fantastic and hopefully it opens more doors for female directors in Hollywood to being their visions to life.