Unbreakable (2000)
Grade: D+
Cast: Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Robin Wright-Penn, and Spencer Treat Clark
Writter/Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rated PG-13 for scenes of violence


I have an idea of how it all went wrong. A pretty good idea, an idea that many others seem to agree with. I couldn't foresee all of this going in. I mean, it had Bruce Willis (who's been solid lately), Samuel L. Jackson (who needs to read his scripts), and Robin Wright-Penn (who really is a good actress). It had a good premise and great atmosphere. I walked in, sat down, and immediately became disengaged. The much-touted cinematography was about to make me ill. The movie wasn't any better. In fact, my vomiting would have probably been more entertaining this this piece of boring, unwatchable tripe.

The story is a pretty simple one. David Dunn (Bruce Willis) and his wife Audrey (Robin Wright-Penn) are having trouble. What kind of trouble? Well, the script isn't kind enough to let us in on that little secret. And then, one day, David gets in a train wreck and becomes the sole survivor. He comes away from the incident unscathed. Suddenly, out of nowhere, David gets a note from a creepy guy named Elijah (Samuel L. Jackson). So, David goes to meet this Elijah guy. It's at this meeting where the question is posed: Has David ever been sick or hurt in his whole entire life? And so begins our sleepy and bleak tale. So sleepy and bleak in fact, that it almost put me to sleep.

The thing that bothered me most is that, while he came up with a new storyline, M. Night Shyamalan has used the same arch of events that he did in his previous feature "The Sixth Sense." The film starts out nice enough, the character finds out that they possess some superhuman trait, and then the said character goes out and helps someone he doesn't know. In "The Sixth Sense," Haley Joel Osment helps the girl whose mother is poisoning her to keep her sick. Here, David goes on a crusade as to save a family that has been help captive by a criminal in their own home.

Humanity, ain't it a wonderful thing? I bet you're asking, "How does this fit in to the whole 'I can't get hurt' storyline?" Well, it gives you the first sign of his only weakness. I won't spoil it for you, but if you watch the scene, it's pretty obvious. This is another segment of the film that made my want to bring my lunch back up. For all of the originality that the plot possesses (a good old fashioned comic book storyline set in modern times), the script is a lame duck and a major detractor to the film as a whole.

Shyamalan needs a script doctor, bad. His written interactions between characters are trite and forced. This is not how real people talk, and yet, Shyamalan wants to go for realism in the film. The big events are badly written, and, while he created good atmostphere for the film, it seems like just another film that wants to be a Hitchcock. Some have even said that it's the closest you'll get to a modern Hitchcock in recent years. However, I beg to differ. The closest you will get is probably Anthony Minghella's "The Talented Mr. Ripley." In that film, it's all about the characters, just like Hitch's films were. This one strives to be that, but faulters in the area of characters. They're just not interesting, and sadly, the movie isn't much different.

"Unbreakable"'s acting is hardly impressive. Willis plays it low-key trying to get an every-man effect. It sort of works, but his portrayal was too stoic. If you want to portray an every-man, you need to show emotion. That's all there is to it. Ordinary people have emotions, too. Samuel L. Jackson is slyly disturbing as Elijah, the villain of the story. His is the only performance that truly works in the film. Of course, we are talking about possibly the greatest actor of our time, so it goes without saying. Robin Wright-Penn's role is too small to really do much. But her scenes are strong. The character isn't really fleshed out, but that's not her fault. The kid in this film, Spencer Treat Clark ("Gladiator") isn't nearly as impressive as Haley Joel Osment, but he gets the job done.

This film is sure to ignite love/hate conversations (I know this first hand), but I have to highly favor the latter argument, as you know from reading my review. One more thing before I conclude. If you laughed at the killer in "I Know What You Did Last Summer" because he looked like the Gordon's Fisherman, than you will be hysterical when they try to make the superhero in this film Raincoat Man or some fool thing like that. I know I was cracking up. This film is the pits.


-Brian Jones, July 2002