Unbroken

All of the Oscars... Maybe... Probably.... Most likely

Unbroken follows the true story of Louis Zamperini (Jack O' Connell) a soldier that was held as a prisoner of war during WWII. The story goes through his childhood, when he was constantly getting into trouble; then transitions to his brother training him to run cross country so he learns to behave himself. The training eventually leads him to the Olympics, where he wins the competition for America. He then joins the Army and experiences engine trouble over the ocean, which leaves him and two of his friends stranded. He is picked up by the Japanese, and tortured for information, awaiting rescue.

This guy has had the most interesting life put to film to date. Honestly, I wish I could meet him so I could hear his unedited version of the story as opposed to the hyped up Hollywood version. Sadly, he passed away during the filming of this, so we are left with this movie, which isn't a horrible substitute, but it could have been better. I just wish I could have got more story on his reasoning for joining in the first place, as opposed to being thrust right into him in a dog fight. I know that the creators have to make sacrifices in the mindset of time and pace; but, I was expecting about a three hour movie to begin with. This being a two hour movie might have hindered it from being amazing. It was great, don't get me wrong, it was just missing a few things. As it stands, this movie seems to have wanted to emulate every critically acclaimed movie ever. There are elements of Cast Away, every touching sports movie ever made, and every touching war movie ever made. This is not a bad thing, but it doesn't seem to have much of a voice for itself. This is still a very touching movie, with plenty of moments that will make the audience angry, sad, scared, and every other type of passionate; so that is a win in my book.

The direction here was great in a lot of ways, but horrible in one. It had great camera work, Angelina Jolie knew how to get the best performances out of her cast that they could offer her, and some of the shots are beautiful enough to have a dozen artist renderings. The part that drove me up the wall here was the sound, and more to the point the sound effects. None of the sound effects seemed to have any gravitas behind them. The gun fire felt like listening to popcorn sometimes, the ocean seemed to have the weight of a pool, and my biggest complaint was with the punching scenes. If I am trying to get the audience to feel sorry for a character getting beat up, I want to make those punches have some bang to them. I want it to seem like Rocky got in a street brawl with Apollo. There is still that "meat hitting meat" sound, but it is low; sacrificed for emotional music.

The acting is the thing that could have made or broke this movie, luckily we had some amazing performances given here. The only problem I had was that there were moments when the characters seemed so disinterested in everything surrounding them, which could have been intentional; but, just not the way I would have went about it. The supporting cast does great, but there is no denying where the weight of this movie fell, and Jack is brilliant. My hope from this entire production is that Jack O' Connell gets some more work, and eventually stars in a movie that I can give my highest honor to.

Final Verdict: See it in Theaters There are some missteps made in this film that are hard to overlook, but it is still a great piece of work. Some small tweaks would have made it unforgettable, but this will do for now.