Post-modern comic book weirdo-fest

Rating: Null/10 (22 January 2001)

Superficially, Unbreakable is much like director M. Night Shyamalan's previous film, his breakthrough smash-hit The Sixth Sense. It stars Bruce Willis and another cute kid (Gladiator's Spencer Treat Clark), it's set in wintry Philadelphia and there's some strange things going on  with a twist at the end. Fortunately, that's where the similarities stop and a rather original, unsettling film begins.
The story opens with a train wreck, from which only one person survives. Miraculously, David Dunn (Willis) is completely unharmed. This is intercut with scenes of a young Elijah Price, who suffers from a genetic disorder which gives him extraordinarily brittle bones, a disease that earns him the nickname 'Mr Glass.' The grown up Elijah (Samuel L. Jackson with absurd hairdo) contacts Dunn and proposes that he is the exact opposite  someone who never breaks their bones, who never gets sick. Dunn dismisses him as a crackpot, but the idea sticks  he doesn't remember ever being ill and he discovers that he is much stronger than he thought possible. Price doesn't give up and reveals his full idea  that Dunn is a real-life comic-book hero with super powers, including a kind of extra-sensory evil-doer perception.

If this all sounds too far fetched, it is very well executed, despite the obvious flaws  surely he would have known he was that strong, that the ESP thing wasn't normal, surely his mother would have noticed that he was never ill. The idea of such extraordinary abilities being dulled and unnoticed in his mundane world is convincing, as is his family's reaction  his wife (Robin Wright Penn) does not believe it and his son (Clark) is in awe. As a normal man in bizarre circumstances, Willis is excellent, as is Jackson as the brooding comic-book collector. Ultimately, the ending is pleasingly low-key and the twist not as shocking or revelatory as in The Sixth Sense. Shyamalan creates an atmosphere that holds the attention and tells his story very well, even if he never quite manages to suspend the audience's disbelief.