Super Hero in A Rain Poncho

Rating: Null/10 (28 November 2000)

Having a style can be something of a mixed blessing. It can trap you so that if you try anything new your audience will reject you. or it can liberate you from the concerns of attracting a new audience and concentrate on making the movies that you are best at making. Many directors use lighting, dialogue and actors so repeatedly that their films become inseparable from each other. Woody Allen comes easily to mind. The audience comes to recognise these qualities and often go to a movie looking for that that they know will be there.On the other hand, some audiences like innovation. They like things to be new, beyond formula and exciting. Truth is some of us go to see films by certain directors or with favourite actors simply because we want to see them in their natural habitat and we feel comfortable.
For a new director developing a style can pose a tricky proposition. Several new filmmakers of the last 10 years have chosen disparate paths - Quentin Tarantino so redefined the gangster genre that his films are instantly recognisable. His impact has been so rich that even bad versions of his film style still feel exactly like his films. Steven Speilberg has chosen a more electric path - with his choice of picture ranging the full gamut of genres thereby avoiding any sense of definitive style.

Last year M. Night Shyamalan debuted on the big screen with `The Sixth Sense' A small movie that due to a blindingly quick revelation of a plot twist became a massive $200 million hit. It propelled the unknown director into the highest heights of Hollywood, garnered an Academy Award nomination for its child-star (Haley Joel Osment) and reconfirmed Bruce Willis as the box-office-breaking star that he is.
Shyamalan latest film `Unbreakable' reunites the director and his very bankable star and this time adds Samuel L. Jackson - a man Willis has co starred with several times before.
Immediately there are elements of the sophomoric film that remind the viewer of that massive hit - the slow pacing, the green/gray lighting, and the subtle soft-spoken lead. Willis character - a security guard named David Dunne with a young son and a crumbling marriage - is so like his `Sixth Sense' character that for a while it feels like he has actually been reincarnated again and transported to this film. For a while these obvious similarities get in the way of enjoying this film.

Through a series of moody flashbacks we learn that Willis' Dunne is a former college football star who faked a career ending injury for the love of a woman. When we first meet Willis he is on a train back from New York to his hometown of Philadelphia. (Philadelphia was also the setting for Sixth Sense). The camera playfully slips back and forth from behind a seat as he flirts with a tattooed your sports agent who sits beside him. Minutes afte r overstepping the line with the married young woman the train they are on derails. Willis miraculously is the sole survivor of the devastating train wreck.

When your first movie costs less than $20 million and grosses 10 times that its pretty much a given in Hollywood that you can do whatever you like for a next project. M. Night Shyamalan chose not to let it go too much to his head as this subtle smart - and though morbidly paced - stylish film shows. Though only his second film, already clear patterns are developing. Shyamalan wrote produced and directed this effort and his mark is well on its way to becoming defined.
Samuel Jackson plays Elijah a man who suffers from a rare bone disease that makes his bones shatter on little impact. As a child Elijah was called Mr. Glass because his limbs were so feeble.
At their initial confrontation it seems as though he is the prophet his biblical name suggests. Elijah carried a cane and though dressed like a post-modern pimp the purple lining of his cloak is more reminiscent of the vespers of a priest.
Willis' character represents the opposite of who he is. He survives a train wreck without as much as a scratch - hence the `unbreakable' of the title. Elijah persists on meeting calling and prompting Willis into thinking because of his resistance to breaking he must be some kind of latter day folk hero. Elijah is a collector and believer in comic books. Try as Willis and his family may Willis eventually comes to believe in Elijah's revelations.
This leads to a climactic scene amidst impossibly heavy rain where Willis confronts a deranged killer. In his fight with the orange clothed villain Willis is thrown from a balcony into a tarpaulin covered pool. Slowly he begins to sink into the water, which we previously learned is this hero's Achilles heel. As he emerges from the water that nearly kills him Shyamalan shows off his true subtly as a director. Willis, cloaked in a navy blue hooded rain poncho, rises with the camera and stands stock still for a moment before going on. It's the perfect coming together of this new talents vision. Rain, dank lighting and Bruce Willis. Its so indelible that's its hard to imagine any other actor playing the lead in this directors next film.
Of course we've seen this all before - new hot shot directors who burst onto the scene with a great movie, a decent second movie even sometimes, only to eventually loose their way. Think John Singleton. Though Shyamalan certainly is onto something here, for style to really be lasting it must breach genres. It's early days yet but 5 years from now it will be interesting to see what Shyamalan is up to.
The element of this film that most defines this director's style and most clearly harks back to `Sixth Sense' is the end. After almost two hours of methodically dragging us in one direction, Shyamalan deftly, quickly and profoundly pulls all his little tricks flashily together with all the softness of a sledgehammer. Stay closely by because if you blink you'll miss the whole thing.