Best Picture of the year 2000

Rating: 10/10 (21 January 2001)

UNBREAKABLE is BY FAR the best film of 2000 and there is not even one single film that comes close to this one when it comes to directing, cinematography, editing, the music score, and the acting: UNBREAKABLE is absolutely perfect, it is flawless, it is daring, and I am grateful that there is a new director in Hollywood who showed us twice in a row what a really brilliant and gifted filmmaker is capable of!
Like THE SIXTH SENSE the starting-point of UNBREAKABLE is a lonely and discontented guy named David Dunne (BRUCE WILLIS) who is on some kind of verge of desperation struck with the huge problem not being able to communicate properly with the people he is surrounded with -- especially the one he loves. (You can almost feel the undefined sadness that's within BRUCE WILLIS' character). And like THE SIXTH SENSE the only person he seems to be in deep emotional contact is a boy. His son Joseph (SPENCER TREAT CLARK) loves and adores him despite the fact that even he get rejected (and kept on a distance) by his father wheras the boy's love and admiration seems boundless. His marriage isn't doing well either. Dunne and his wife (ROBIN WRIGHT PENN) live in separate bedrooms, they seem very sad througout the movie, sad but unfortunately still in love and neither capable to recognise or name their problems nor to handle them! A divorce seems inevitable.
Like THE SIXTH SENSE the film has some kind of a `mentor' from outside the family. Meet Elijah Price (SAMUEL L JACKSON). This `mentor' seems to know more about Dunne than Dunne would have known or suspected about himself. After surviving a horrible train crash killing everybody on the train but David Dunne (who survived the crash unharmed) Elijah starts tutoring his unwilling and rejecting new `student' Dunne about the unavoidable truth: David is one kind of a very special species of men: their bones don't break, they don't suffer any illnesses, and their existence have a special purpose: they are meant to do good deeds, being heroic, fight injustice, or put into one sentence: David Dunne is destined to be a genuine super hero!
Like THE SIXTH SENSE the lead character is unwilling to accept his new position and purpose in his life. He fights and rejects it deeply, and he needs help from others to open his mind and to accept the unavoidable.

Like THE SIXTH SENSE it is the path leading David on his inner quest that is important part about the movie (not the destination itself). His quest examines elementary issues like destiny and one's use in life, and the film avoids giving answers but leaves the viewer alone with his thoughts (even if you are not religious it makes you think and probably reconsider a few things).
But the thing that makes UNBREAKABLE truly great is not necessarily the story itself but how the story is told by director M NIGHT SHYAMALAN. His style offers some virtues in directing which seemed to be long lost!! SHYAMALAN likes to use long angles without any editing at all allowing us to watch the characters becoming real-life persons - and we are allowed to look at them and watch them as they are working things out, questioning themselves, struggling with the situation they are in. It also makes you appreciating the work of the actors involved even more. You can almost feel these people and you really start caring about them. It gives you the feeling of some sort of documentary of real people and real emotions. Well this only could work because The acting is marvellous as well (as it is in every SHYAMALAN film)! BRUCE WILLIS has never been better, he is a genuine character actor trapped in the body of an action star! And SAMUEL L JACKSON is always brilliant. He was able to shine in every single role he had done previously, no matter how dull or stupid his part was - fortunately these times are over, this movie is the prove (Give this man a life sized oscar, why don't you!). ROBIN WRIGHT PENN is great as well. Although her part doesn't give her much to do really, her understated performance fit in so perfectly and works without any signs of vanity and mannerism that you have to adore her for her professionalism which makes her a truly great actress - especially if you think of the high rank of UNBREAKABLE from the very beginning! SPENCER TREAT CLARK did an equally good job playing David Dunne's son Joseph. His performance is as good as JOSEPH CROSS was in WIDE AWAKE or HALEY JOEL OSMENT in THE SIXTH SENSE and all the other kids playing in M NIGHT SHYAMALAN's films.
I think one of the reasons that made THE SIXTH SENSE a huge hit was the editing of the movie: The editor of the film ANDREW MONDSHEIN did a great but more conventional job, making THE SIXTH SENSE faster in the terms of storytelling while UNBREAKABLE was edited by P. T. Anderson's editor DYLAN TICHENOR. His approach to films is lot more arthouse-like (but brilliant though). His low paced editing is much harder to find in the blockbuster movies of Hollywood. Since his style of editing is quite unfamiliar to the mass audiences which is certainly not used to concentrating on one angle alone for an entire scene I am not surprised that some movie goers consider this movie pretentious and even boring! I think that TICHENOR's editing fit in perfectly with SHYAMALAN's story telling (and is Oscar worthy), but Night should probably consider to reunite with ANDREW MONDHEIN who is clearly an editing genius in his own terms. His work gave THE SIXTH SENSE a little more `ooomph', and he as an editor is just as brilliant as SHYAMALAN is as a director and their styles match perfectly.
Please, Night, do another one soon. I have started suffering from `Shyamalan Withdrawal' already!