The singular life of U.S. Olympic athlete, World War II bombardier, and prisoner of war Louis Zamperini seems tailor-made for the kind of awards season biopic that Hollywood adores. Angelina Jolie's film about the man is a bit more rawboned than most features that fall into this dismal category, but still disappointingly pedestrian. Adapted from the book of the same name by Lauren Hillenbrand, Unbroken chiefly follows Zamperini (Jack O'Connell) during his WWII tribulations. Flashbacks provide snapshots of his delinquent youth and subsequent fame as an international track star. The meat of the story, however, concerns the crash of his B-24 bomber in the Pacific, and the dumbfounding tribulations that followed.
Adrift for 47 days in a life raft, Zamperini survives sharks, storms, dehydration, starvation, and strafings by passing Japanese fighters, only to be captured off the Marshall Islands. He is thereafter confined, interrogated, tortured, shipped from one POW camp to the next, and eventually worked to the brink of death in a coal plant. Singled out by the young Japanese officer called “the Bird” (Takamasa Ishihara)—a sadist seething with inferiority and resentments—Zamperini endures humiliation and brutal punishment in a personalized effort to shatter his spirit.
Jolie's treatment of Zamperini's trials amounts to misery pornography, albeit fantastically handsome misery pornography, given that cinematographer Roger Deakins is behind the camera. The Christ-like quality of the hero's sufferings are foregrounded, but the film never engages with it beyond shallow allegory and a perfunctory footnote. Jolie gets little assistance from O'Connell, who goes through the requisite physical mutation from robust athlete to feeble stick figure, but delivers a performance that is all surfaces. Overall, Unbroken is a competent but underwhelming effort, and a bit of a waste given all the fascinating potential angles in Zamperini's tale.
Unbroken opens Wednesday, December 24 in wide release.
