The recent death of Louis Zamperini, the subject of Unbroken, adds a poignancy to its release that both enhances and undermines Angelina Jolie’s chronicle of his survival. On one hand, Unbroken, based on Laura Hillenbrand’s best-selling account of Zamperini’s tremendous will to live, is now more than ever a tribute to one man’s physical and psychological stamina and determination.  The flip side, however, is that the timing of Zamperini’s death may create audience feelings that mask the film’s weaknesses.

The most common weakness that I’ve heard — and I felt this myself — is that Jolie’s film is not as “inspirational” as it is intended to be.  Some have blamed Jolie for her handling of the material, but I think this reaction is due to the material itself.  What Louis Zamperini endured in World War II — surviving the crash at sea of his bomber, more than a month-and-a-half in a small life raft, and then years (?) in a Japanese POW camp — is almost beyond belief.  I found myself thinking that I certainly would have died at sea, probably in the crash.  And yet he (and his friend Phil) live.  Then the torture of the POW camps, where, again, I would not have survived.  At some point, I just said to myself, this is unbelievable, even though I know it happened.  His survival becomes so singular, as opposed to universal, that it loses its value to inspire because it seems so impossible.

It’s also a very calculated, episodic movie that rarely feels spontaneous.  Production values are high, and newcomer Jack O’Connell has real presence as Zamperini, but the script (by the Coen brothers!) fails to inflate the drama properly.  One of the other POWs tells Zamperini that simply surviving is heroic, that we will beat the enemy simply by living until the war’s end.  That seems logical in real life terms — if I was a suffering POW I would certainly want to feel that way — but that sentiment is simply not powerful enough to drive a stirring, uplifting movie about triumph.

The other issue that deflates this film is its cruelty.  There is all the reason in the world to show how American prisoners were treated by the Japanese during the war, especially within the film’s context, but that doesn’t make the sadism any easier to watch.  So much modern “entertainment,” from horror films to comedies, relies upon human cruelty that I’ve become sick of it.  I don’t want to see it any more, even in a movie like this which is not using torture as exploitation.

I saw Unbroken more than a week ago, and thought at the time it was pretty well done, if not inspirational.  But I waited to review it while my thoughts settled, and now I have a lesser opinion of it.  Zamperini’s unfortunate experiences occurred more than fifty years ago, and while movie rights to his story were secured as early as 1957 (with Tony Curtis pursuing the role), no movie had been forthcoming until now. It seems like the kind of film that would be bound to work, and yet now I think that other writers were stymied by some of the issues that bother me with the finished product.  Jolie’s film is polished enough, and has some terribly powerful moments, but it doesn’t seem finished inside.  ☆ ☆ 1/2.  5 January 2015.