{"id":174,"date":"2014-12-27T10:06:36","date_gmt":"2014-12-27T15:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/culturated.com\/?p=174"},"modified":"2014-12-27T10:06:36","modified_gmt":"2014-12-27T15:06:36","slug":"unbroken-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/unbroken-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Unbroken Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Angelina_Jolie\"><strong>Angelina Jolie<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s second directorial effort clearly aspires to be the sort of inspirational story of \u201cSurvival, Resilience and Redemption\u201d that Oscar dreams are made of. The problem lies in the \u201cUnbelievable True Story\u201d of American war hero <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Louis_Zamperini\"><strong>Louis Zamperini<\/strong><\/a> (played earnestly by <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jack_O%27Connell_(actor)\"><strong>Jack O\u2019Connell<\/strong><\/a>), which plays like an endless exercise in patriotic American torture porn.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The film certainly starts off with a bang. Zamperini, the bullied problem child son of Italian immigrants, turns to running as a way to burn off excess energy. He winds up running the 5000-meter race in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, where a strong finish leads to a personal meeting with Adolf Hitler.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kk1M_HwmFMM\" width=\"648\" height=\"432\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In 1941, during World War II, he enlists in the US Army Air Forces, quickly rising to second lieutenant. Two years later he\u2019s deployed on a B-24 Liberator bomber, which is badly damaged during combat over the Japanese-held island of Nauru.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He and his fellow crew members are given another, notoriously defective plane and ordered to conduct a search for a lost Allied aircraft and its crew. Mechanical difficulties cause the plane to crash into the ocean, killing 8 of the 11 men on board. Only Zamperini and his buddies Phil (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm1727304\/\"><strong>Domhnall Gleeson<\/strong><\/a>) and Mac (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm1587729\/\"><strong>Finn Wittrock<\/strong><\/a>) survive.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/unbroken-movie.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-153\" src=\"http:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/unbroken-movie.jpg\" alt=\"Unbroken Movie Review\" width=\"648\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/unbroken-movie.jpg 648w, https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/unbroken-movie-300x154.jpg 300w, https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/unbroken-movie-330x169.jpg 330w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The trio spends the next 47 days on a raft, surviving on rainwater, small fish and the occasional albatross. They fight off numerous shark attacks, a horrendous storm, machine gun strafing from a Japanese bomber, and the worst sunburn you\u2019ve ever seen. Not all of them make it out alive, and those who do are ultimately captured by the Japanese Navy in the Marshall Islands, where they\u2019re mercilessly tortured. And this is just the film\u2019s halfway point!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Though <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unbrokenfilm.com\"><strong><i>Unbroken<\/i><\/strong><\/a> is 137 minutes long, the languid pacing makes it feel much, much longer. There\u2019s almost too much story here, with each section arguably worthy of its own film in the hands of a more experienced director. Watched in one sitting, the overall effect becomes numbing, with an odd sense of cool detachment where there should be raw emotional passion and heart.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/unbroken_movie_poster.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-152\" src=\"http:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/unbroken_movie_poster.jpg\" alt=\"unbroken_movie_poster\" width=\"338\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/unbroken_movie_poster.jpg 389w, https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/unbroken_movie_poster-202x300.jpg 202w, https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/unbroken_movie_poster-330x488.jpg 330w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 338px) 100vw, 338px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no denying the potency of the incredible life story being told here. But, from the ensemble of writers (including a rewrite by the Coen Brothers) to Jolie\u2019s strangely conventional directorial approach, there\u2019s simply not much oomph to the telling.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Despite Roger Deakins\u2019 stunning cinematography and fine performances by Gleeson and Japanese pop star-turned-actor Takamasa Ishihara (a.k.a. <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Miyavi\"><strong>Miyavi)<\/strong><\/a> as the malevolent Mutsuhiro &#8220;The Bird&#8221; Watanabe, this is one heroic tale whose ending is more triumphant than its execution.\u00a0<b><i> \u2013Bret Love<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<dl class=\"dl-horizontal\">\n<dd><\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>RATING:<\/strong>\u00a0PG-13 (for war violence including intense sequences of brutality, and for brief language)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>GENRE:<\/strong>\u00a0Drama<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>DIRECTED BY:<\/strong>\u00a0Angelina Jolie<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>WRITTEN BY:<\/strong>\u00a0Laura Hillenbrand,\u00a0William Nicholson,\u00a0Richard LaGravenese,\u00a0Joel Coen,\u00a0Ethan Coen<\/p>\n<div class=\"movie_info clearfix\">\n<div class=\"left_col\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>MAIN CAST:<\/strong>\u00a0Jack O&#8217;Connell,\u00a0Domhnall Gleeson,\u00a0Finn Wittrock,\u00a0Garrett Hedlund,\u00a0Miyavi<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>STUDIO:<\/strong>\u00a0Universal Pictures<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Angelina Jolie\u2019s second directorial effort clearly aspires to be the sort of inspirational story of \u201cSurvival, Resilience and Redemption\u201d that Oscar dreams are made&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3,11],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/unbroken.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5slei-2O","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}