Review of Unbreakable (2000) by Jayakrishnan R — 18 Dec 2015

Saw this film on 21/05/2013.

A weaker ending!!!!! I mean are these critics serious? For those who haven't seen this film, I assure you that the climax is not weak, it still shocks. With Unbreakable, Shyamalan crafts another great drama thriller with a realistic and humane touch. Unbreakable can be considered as a realistic vision of a superhero, how a superhero can be born in real life.

The acting is quite marvellous here. Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson constantly bring on great dramatic moments here. Bruce Willis gives you one of his greatest performances of all time. Robin Wright is also charming and adorable in here. Shyamalan builds up a great hell of tension in the middle. The theory of the film and the practicality are well explained in this film. Shyamalan has so far done 4 good films, they were his first four films. Sixth Sense(1998) is the greatest, Signs(2002) is ok- alright but it lacks logic and he tries to make it feel different and simple from his horror thriller Sixth Sense. Also there is the heavily underrated 'The Village'(2004) where Shyamalan brings up a lot of plot twists which are unorthodox and indigestible by the common audience. But I liked that surprise ending really well. The main problem with Unbreakable is that Shyamalan didn't try too hard to out beat the ending of The Sixth Sense. When the film drove to the climax, I felt that it was just going to end like Signs, but then a formidable twist came and I was taken aback.

Unbreakable revolves around two great characters, the first one is Elijah Price( Samuel L Jackson) who is born with a disease that leaves him easily vulnerable to bone fractures. Elijah's mother gives him hope by giving him comic books and asking him to take inspirations from the superheroes. Elijah's life revolves around the comics, he becomes obsessed and he feels that the world is in a lot of pain and suffering and they need a hero, like in the comic books. His idea is that if there is the existence of a man like him, so vulnerable like him, the why can't there be an opposite of him, a man who is unbreakable. This idea stays on him for a long and he searches for such a person. He always checks the large news for lone survivors of large massacre accidents. Then he finds Willis and from there Shyamalan gives a vivid account to you by showing you the lives of both these gentlemen. Shyamalan clearly depicts his theory, you might feel like it is insane when you hear it, but you won't feel the same when you watch it.

Willis is unbreakable and has a lot of instincts and also when he touch people he could see the crimes they have done in their past. One of the most haunting scenes of the movie is where the scene where Willis' son tries to prove that his father is a hero, he has powers innate in him. I will now write a blog about Shyamalan's work, from the worst to the best and let us hope that his upcoming film After Earth(2013) will be his comeback to good film making.