Another brilliant film by M. Knight Shyamalan

Rating: 8/10 (28 August 2001)

M. Knight Shyamalan is clearly a director who thinks a great deal about every aspect of his films. He has an uncanny ability to translate the emotional tone of his scripts into the visual medium. But it is Shyamalan's sensitivity to the psychological realities of his characters that breathes life into his technical mastery. In Unbreakable, Shyamalan uses this particular gift to turn a slow and largely uneventful plot into a deep and genuinely moving story. Like its predecessor, The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable concerns the realm of the paranormal. David Dunn, played by Bruce Willis, falls asleep on a train and wakes up in the hospital to find that he's the only survivor of a devastating train wreck. As the movie progresses, the reasons for David's survival gradually take shape as a miraculous possibility -- that he is literally indestructible. It is a credit to the director's maturity that he is able to develop this incredible plot virtually without special effects, overt gimmicry or emotional manipulation. The plot is moved along more by character development than the usual Hollywood flash; some may find the movie painfully slow for just this reason. Ironically, perhaps, it is this kind of patient forbearance that occasionally interferes with the full development of Unbreakable's characters. For much of the first half of the film, I expected David Dunn to show some recognition of the enormity of surviving the train crash. Shyamalan has commented that he was reluctant to show too much of Dunn's emotions too soon, but I think in this case he creates a situation where the audience might have difficulty identifying with the film's central character until late into the plot. Willis' rather wooden performance only intensifies our sense of alienation from the character. To a certain extent, I think this is a clever device of the director -- to contrast the liabilities of David's emotional invulnerability with the gift of his physical invulnerability -- but it comes off at times as too heavy handed. Another minor crack in Unbreakable's otherwise excellent facade is its rather abrupt "twist" ending. As in The Sixth Sense, the surprise is unexpected and emotionally jarring. I was quite impressed with how Sixth Sense presented its own "twist" ending without seeming contrived or manipulative; Unbreakable fares less well in that regard. After a slow and purposeful buildup and emotionally satisfying climax, Unbreakable's ending seems jagged and unnecessary. Over all, I think Unbreakable is an excellent film by a director whose talent is unquestionable. Despite some minor flaws, it's well worth seeing.