Not a fun film

Rating: 6/10 (7 March 2020)

Absolute respect to Louis Zamperini who by all accounts has a story so ridiculously packed with misfortune, luck and mountains to climb that many have speculated if it's really possible to create a film about this man, who died at the grand age of 97 in the same year of this film's release. I'm going to exercise all of my self restraint and not make the obvious joke about him dying of boredom watching this film.
The first issue is the run-time, at 2 and a half hours of Prisoner of War Camp with no letting up is a real slog. Seriously, The Deer Hunter is less of a slog than this and that's similar material, and for over 3 hours. I was going to deep dive on my issues but after such a long film, I'm just gonna save us both time and talk more generally on the film as a whole.
There's just a lot to take in when you're depicting inhuman events that really happened. These events you expect to see shown in a human way, ramped up to 11 at just the right time, but instead 'Unbroken' looks like a fever dream that is populated by actors who seem unclear on what they're doing.
I say this for two reasons. The Fever Dream - I'm not sure how to put this but - there is seemingly no weather in this film (it only rains when it impacts the plot, the rest is glowing sunshine), which gives the very real events depicted an unsuited uncanny valley/Truman Show vibe.
As for the supporting cast, I didn't get a solid sense of characterisation from anyone other than Louis Zamperini, and I found some of the acting to be misdirected, which left me wondering if nuances in the script were at times, lost.
This was a Christmas movie, and I think I know why. Jolie approaches the material with all the bible-thumping zeal of an Evangelist. "Repent!" she cries, "Repent!" as she lays yet another misdeed onto the laundry list of misdeeds visited upon Zamperini.
Compare this to films like 27 Hours, which while not the same scale of misery, it interspersed its more gruelling scenes of horror and fear amongst the beautiful ones of a life that lead up to those awful moments - pacing. It was effective because it highlighted parallels between "then" and "now" in the film that were poignant, it gave you a break and it heightened the emotion via contrasting it. That process is non-existent in this film.
I hate to say it but I think the problem with this film is one related to class. This movie was not made to entertain, it smacks of that sombre Puritan vibe of American Thankgiving, "sorry for the killing but thanks for this turkey which we killed because we killed all of you". Jolie may feel the need to repent at Christmas time, being a highly monied individual, from a highly monied family, but Mrs. Gary Nobody who works six days a week in Tesco or Walmart and only has Christmas Day off to spend with the kids, doesn't need such a self-flaggelating experience as the one delivered by Unbroken.