Unbreakable Reigns! (Unbreakable (DVD))

Member Name: itsonlyme

Product:	Unbreakable (DVD)
Date:	26/06/01 (11 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Better than the Sixth Sense

Disadvantages: Still no classic!

Do you feel like you need to help people? Have you ever felt an evil entity in the air? Have you ever been sick or harmed? All these questions haunt mild mannered security guard David Dunn (Willis), a Philadelphia resident that comes out of a train wreck as the sole survivor -- and unscathed to boot.

His inquisitor is Elijah Price (Jackson), a man with such fragile bones that he has sustained over 50 broken limbs in a mere 39 years of life. Price lives in a seclution that has made him an expert in the world of comic books, where he would often lose himself as a child sitting in a hospital. In his mind, there must be an opposite to him -- a near superhuman that could be the hero of one of his first edition comics.

Dunn serves as his theory -- the one person that has been born strong, heroic, and undefeatable. Price puts it all into perspective late in the film, a discretion that could make or break the film for viewers, and really makes it all make sense in its own little way.

Dunn is a real human being, not the magnificent superhero that Price yearns for him to be, but it is an intellectual superiority that seems to cause everything to make sense. Dunn has a past, a troubled marriage, and a self-loathing that makes him seem like an impossible Superman. But the audience can believe in Dunn with Price because he is the smarter one, the genius in a shattered body.

Last year saw the release of one of the most overrated films of my lifetime. That film was M. Night Shyamalan?s The Sixth Sense, which not only conquered the box office but also received as Academy Award nomination for Best Picture of the year. That film had more problems than I can count in a single review and was merely saved by a fine tuned ending.

Now here comes Unbreakable, Shyamalan?s follow up film also starring Bruce Willis. The two films are sure to be compared, though their connections are very few (save from the director and star, they only share a commo
n eerie mood), and it is a comparison that will surely hurt Unbreakable due to its uncharacteristic plodding and the high respect for the elder film.

I fear that people will turn this film down due its difference. That?s a shame, Unbreakable is three times the film that The Sixth Sense is and does not attempt to balance everything on a shock ending. The Sixth Sense may have some compassion and heart, but the real pleasure is in Unbreakable, where you really feel that Shyamalan has had the chance to throw out restraints and create a purely personal film within a story that couldn?t seem more impersonal.

I was struck watching this film, thinking of what had to have been running through the mind of Shyamalan when he created this story and how he would have never been able to get it off the ground if not for The Sixth Sense. I have no doubt that he was a huge fan of comic books in his youth and yearned to create a film that could successfully present that feeling. I was not a child of the comics but I can appreciate a film that seems so close to the director without creating a film that only works to those in the inner-circle (i.e. Oliver Stone?s Any Given Sunday).
Shyamalan has much to be desired as a director and a screenwriter, both of which he makes near tragic mistakes in. His real use is in the field of scenario, which he can create like a madman (his first film, the ?inspirational? family film Wide Awake, was a terrific story lost in a mess of camera set-up and dialogue), but he really needs some work in the other fields. There are many parts early in the film that rely on reflections as the setting, but no one seemed to mention to him that scenes like such only look right when they do not look like a young director trying to be catchy. The first offence is not horrible, but the fifth time he does it gets really old.

The cinematographer on this film, Eduardo Serra (What Dreams May Come), actually does a fine job in the shoes of The
Sixth Sense?s Tak Fujimoto. Serra captures some scenes in a beautiful dark palette that makes everything moody and disturbing. His handheld work is questionable, especially in one of the film?s earlier scenes (though I would not be surprised if that decision was one made by Shyamalan), but he deserved utmost attention for his capturing of outdoor scenes in the daylight, which actually brought to mind Owen Roizman's Georgetown in William Friedkin?s The Exorcist. That?s quite a compliment.

For what it?s worth, there?s much for me to agree with in Unbreakable, which seems destined to be on a road to nowhere early on but pays off three-fold. I was interested in the film in its early moments and ready for it to take me on a ride I had not been on before. When it looks to be at a precipice of originality, it comes in with something new and does not let down for the rest of the film.

What Unbreakable strives to do, and in many succeeds in doing, is create a lifelike supernatural world. These are real people with real problems looking in the face of some of the most questionable circumstances. The last act of the film comes from left field and is, in its own way, astonishingly believable. For a film to surround comic books like this film does and perfectly represent them without going into what might be considered kitschy territory is testament to Shyamalan?s abilities as a storyteller.

The ending of this film fails at first glance. In fact, I sat for a few seconds thinking of how it had just blown itself out of the water, but, by the time retrospect kicks in, the finale becomes convincing and even scarier than another choice might have been. This film will either haunt you in its pleasure or incite you with its proud divisiveness.

Is Unbreakable a great film? No not really -- it is so flawed that some things are incredibly hard to get beyond. But I liked it in its own little way. It got under my skin and still haunts me now -- someth
ing I could never say about The Sixth Sense.

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