After surviving two crash landings during World War II, spending 45 days adrift at sea and being beaten and tortured while in a Japanese labor camp as a prisoner of war, the only thing left unbroken on Louie Zamperini was his spirit.
The message of “Unbroken,” based on his life and adapted from the best seller by Laura Hillenbrand, is to survive at all costs or die trying. There are no fancy speeches about endurance. Zamperini simply teaches by the example of his remarkable life.
With it director Angelina Jolie enters the Greatest Generation zone populated by Tom Hanks, Tom Brokaw, Steven Spielberg and Brad Pitt.
While as brutal and downbeat as “Fury,” which starred Jolie’s husband Pitt as a war-weary tank driver, “Unbroken” sleeps with the angels, literally; Zamperini said that he would dedicate his life to God if saved, and those prayers were answered.
One scene, in which Zamperini – played by Jack O’Connell – is ordered by a Japanese officer, to hold a cross beam above his head is nothing short of a crucifixion.
But what he endures makes you wonder if there is a God.
The real life singer-songwriter Miyavi, in his first feature role, plays the swaggering, bamboo cane swinging camp commandant as a sadistic supervillain who picks Zamperini out for special abuse.
The camp scenes that make up the second half of the film resemble a circle of hell, including a descent into a Japanese coal operation.
The first half is a sprint through Zamperini’s youth as a juvenile delinquent quick to anger over anti-Italian taunts, who becomes the fastest high school runner in the US and finished eighth at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
His placement is a detail the film does not mention lest it spoil the triumphant tone. Instead we see snippets of the race and his family listening on the radio.
Zamperini was a bombardier during the war when his plane went down in the Pacific, where he was rescued, if thats the right word, by the Japanese. He always wanted to visit Tokyo to compete in the Olympics, Zamperini says while traveling through the city blindfolded in a prison camp caravan. “Be careful what you wish for,” says another POW.
Every veteran of every war has a story to tell: Eastwood tells a Iraq war horror tale in the upcoming “American Sniper.”
Jolie doesn’t attempt to elevate or amplify events visually and lets the story tell itself. The result is a workmanlike effort in the literal. Here’s a Christmas wish that after the war Zamperini got what he prayed for. He certainly earned it.
Three stars ***
With Jack O’Connell, Domnhall Gleeson, Garrett Hedlund, Miyavi, Finn Wittrock, Jai Courtney. Produced by Matthew Baer, Angelina Jolie, Ewwin Stoff, Clayton Townsend. Written by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. Richard LaGravenese, William Nicholson. Directed by Angelina Jolie. Rated PG-13; war violence, intense brutality, language. Approximate running time: 137 minutes.
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