Unbroken: Jolie's unbroken intensity

UNBROKEN
*ing: Jack O'Connell, Domhnall Gleeson, Miyavi, Garrett Hedlund, Finn Wittrock
Rated: 7/10
It’s a mind-boggling life that Louis Zamperini lived all through the 97 years that he fought almost everything — imaginable and unimaginable — from school days beatings to being trained as a marathon runner, to run the Berlin Olympics, to shake hands with Hitler, to steal the Fuehrer’s personal flag, to becoming a bombardier, to going down with a plane, to drifting ceaselessly without water or food for 47 days in the Pacific Ocean, to being captured by the Japanese, to spending two of his most harrowing years as a POW, to finally returning to his family, to fighting alcoholism and post traumatic stress disorder, to becoming a born-again Christian, to preaching forgiveness as an inspirational speaker, to running the Olympics again, in Japan this time at age 87, to finally falling to pneumonia just three years short of turning 100!
Obviously director Angelina Jolie could not have captured all these dramatic facets of one man’s life in a two-and-a-half hour screen drama. She does catch most of it, but why should she have turned shy of not including the saga of this man’s life after he survived his POW experience is a question everyone will ask after seeing this intense film on the ultimate spirit of unbrokenness and following the dictum that ‘if you can take it, you can make it’ with absolutely moving results.
Louis Zamperini’s story is so inspirational courageous and outrageous all at the same time that a film on him had minimal chances of being botched up.Unbroken is intensely moving, involving and dramatic and the only flaw that you can see in it is an abrupt end to a story that carried on with equal endeavour and achievement much after the film ends. A sequel? Jolie should think about it as Louis Zamperini was one man who fought adversities with superlative, undying spirit that his story will always carry screen currency. Played beautifully by British actor Jack O’Connell, Jolie’s Zamperini is Oscar material. As for the film, debutante director Jolie makes quite an impact — just as she does in her otherwise eventful life.

Source: Sunday Pioneer, January 4, 2015 

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