If I Can Take It, I Can Make It

The trailor for Unbroken shows an action-packed film that is guaranteed to keep the viewer riveted to the screen and on the edge of their seats. If I judged the film on the trailer, I'd give it an A -- but then I sat through the rest of the story as it trickled across the screen.

Louis Zamperini is played by Jack O'Connell, an actor who does a fine job portraying what has to be the world's unluckiest SOB. First, Zamperini's plane is shot all to hell by the Japanese enemy during WWII, then he has to ditch in the ocean, from which he is plucked by Japanese military, who take him to a prison camp, where his fame as a former US Olympic track star pins a bull's eye on him for maltreatment by a cruel Japanese jailor. Woven throughout these several ordeals are bits 'n pieces of his childhood, where he had to learn the hard lesson that in order to make it through life, you have to be able to take a lot of shit from a lot of sources.

Now, that's a fairly good story, but ... . First, his childhood was on par with that of all the other children in families that suffered during The Great Depression. Zamperini was lucky that he had caring parents and siblings, one of whom taught him how to take whatever came at him. When Louis qualified for the Olympics, he gave his best on the course, but I can't tell you if he won his race or not because my mind was already wandering as the film began to spend far too much time getting to the point.

Then, when the plane was shot up and ditched in the ocean and Louis had to single-handedly save his crew, the story enlongated again. While the castaways' hair didn't grow, nor did their facial hair change, the alternating scenes of sun and darkness and veiled references to another crew that was on the ocean for 40-some-odd days. At one point in the getting to the point (the rescue by the Japanese ship), it felt as if we'd been on the ocean ourselves for 40+ days, but the actors finally had some sunburn and scrabbly beard stubble.

Next, he went to prison of war camp, where there probably was a highly-skilled barber who kept the hair and beard growing under control. Also, there had to be a prison laundry because the clothes should have been rags a whole lot sooner than later. Louis suffered, but it seems that he was singled out to suffer while the rest of the prisoners went about their daily routine. I'm not sure how long Louis suffered, but my suffering was about 20 minutes of childhood, 25 minutes of ocean wreck, 30 minutes of prison suffering, an hour+ that moved by at an unbelievably slow pace.

Unbroken is a story written by Laura Hillenbrand about the real-life protagonist, Louis Zamperini. I think I would enjoy reading the book more than I enjoyed watching the film as I would get to create my own mental movie as I read, rather than sitting captive in a theatre seat while someone else's vision of the story dragged across the screen. It's not a bad film, but it is not any better than average.