Unbroken

 
The son of Italian immigrants, Louis Zamperini had a rough childhood. Immersed into an unfamiliar place, Louis started down a destructive path at a young age. It wasn't until his older brother Pete noticed Louis running faster than he'd ever seen anyone run - and as a result encouraged him to try out - that he soon found himself trying out for the high school track team and turning his life around. Running took him all the way to the Olympics before World War II halted his career. Louis enlisted as a bombardier and served on a B-24 Liberator until he and his crew were shot down over the Pacific Ocean and stranded for a total of 47 days before being rescued by the Japanese. Louis was brought to a POW (prisoner of war) camp where he spent over 2 years being tortured and being forced to work for the Japanese in three different camps in Japan. The only thing that kept Louis alive was his faith, the memories of his family back in the United States wondering if he was still alive, and the advice of his brother Pete: "If you can take it, you can make it".

If you've never heard of Louis Zamperini, I highly suggest you seek out both the movie Unbroken, as well as the book of the same name it's based on. His is a very inspiring tale of one tragedy after another, and yet being able to remain...well, there's no other way to say this, unbroken in both mind and spirit.

I personally haven't read the book yet (that's one of my goals for the next couple weeks), but what I can say in regards to the movie is that while I thought it was fantastic, there were some parts I wish had a little bit more depth put into them than what made it into the final film. In the trailer for Unbroken, there's a scene where the main Japanese antagonist Mutsushiro Watanabe orders the entire prison camp to line up and throw punches at Louis Zamperini. In the film itself, that same scene didn't have the same emotional depth as I was hoping because it felt like the scene was just kind of glossed over, as if it wasn't really all that important. I personally thought it was important because it coincided with the theme of "If you can take it, you can make it". There were one or two other scenes that were the same way, one during the beginning of the film when Louis is trapped on a life boat with two other men. In the trailer Louis is exasperated at one of the men who keeps complaining and saying over and over that they're going to die. Louis finally throws up his hands and exclaims "We're NOT dying!". In the movie, that same scene happens, but he doesn't have the same level of intensity in his outburst as he did in the trailer. It might seem trivial to complain about such a small thing in the whole movie, but with an inspirational story such as this, for me things like that take away from the overall emotional sincerity of Unbroken.

While the movie as a whole could have benefited from more emotional depth, pretty much everything - and everyone - else hit it out of the park. Jack O'Connell was perfectly cast as Louis Zamperini, capturing the essence of a man put under monumental amounts of stress and pain no ordinary man could possibly endure. Takamasa Ishihara was absolutely ruthless as Mutsushiro Watanabe. I strongly encourage people to seek this one out.