Learn the story, but don't expect a life changing film

Rating: 5/10 (28 December 2014)

With the two recent WW2 films that detail amazing individual stories "The Railway Man" and "The Imitation Game" I had very high hopes for this film to live in my memory long after I had seen the film and to stand the testament of time, however, much like the recent "The Monuments Men" I found it told an excellent story but a disappointing, forgettable film.
The main fault with this film is that I just never felt engrossed or connected with the suffering that Zamperini was supposed to have endured, for a number of reasons. Apart from a very strong start (and a very impressive opening aerial battle scene) the whole film felt incredibly one dimensional, as if I was watching one boring scene after another. That is no criticism of O'Connell whose performance was top draw, the fault lies with the direction or AJ in this case.
Up to the original capture location, the film brings about some reality, with Zamperini looking like death and being shipped off to Tokyo to endure the worst POW camp imaginable. However he then seems to arrive at a slightly run down summer camp with a teenage boy supporting a bamboo cane in charge. There is no real "horror" here, as morbid and as dark as that may sound on my part, the conditions are not particularly bad, with the camp doing exercise classes, moving wood around a few times and even watching a play put on by the prisoners. Zamperini looks clean shaven on most occasions. Compared to "The Railway Man" where I genuinely struggled to watch some of the scenes in the POW camps, due to the sick, violent acts of the guards, this felt like they were at boarding school with each other, guards and prisoners included.
The teenage boy I am referring to is "The Bird" who was dubbed the worst most evil POW commander in the history of Japan, some of the acts he was supposed to have performed do not even warrant mentioning on here, so naturally you expect someone you ACTUALLY would fear one way or another on screen.
What we get is Takamasa Ishihara, who just doesn't cut the mustard. His "horrific" acts simply boil down to a couple of whacks with the dreaded bamboo cane and couple of boots put in for good measure. I never would expect or want to see a Tarantino level of gore and suffering in a film like this but nothing he did really made me fear what was about to come. You learn that Zamperini is a tough bloke who can take a punch in the first five minutes so you don't need that proved a hundred times. It wasn't difficult to watch, just felt like it was repeating the same message over and over again.
At about the 1 hr 45 mark, around 5-6 people left the cinema out of boredom, I didn't think the film was THAT bad but you could see where they were coming from. When it moves onto the second POW camp, you feel as if it may take another turn but oh no, Japanese Justin Bieber shows up again with the stick of truth and Zamperini "faints" in fear. One of the weakest scenes in the film.
The film then slogs on for another 30 mins or so at the second POW camp and the whole formula is repeated. At this point I had given up caring and just wanted it to end because I knew nothing was going to change. I felt nothing for the characters at this point in the film at this point, only respect for O'Connell and Garrett Hedlund for clearly giving 110% performance efforts and being talented actors.
The finale set piece where he is holding the log above his head is one clearly made for suspense, and scenes where he slipped and stumbled was supposed to have the audience on the edge of their seats, gasping in fear of what may happen if he drops it. However, because we had seen nothing to fear from the guards at this point, no one really brought into it. All I felt like I was watching was a random man holding a log above his head for 5 minutes, not our hero on the edge of his teather, pushing the boundaries of human capabilities.
My point proved when the bird breaks out his extend able tooth pick again and knocks Zamperini down to the ground again, admitting defeat, having little emotional effect on anyone. The war is over and Zamperini returns home to his family. One of the only real emotional scenes that Im sure a few people have mentioned already, is the actual footage of Zamperini running at the Olympics in Japan at the age of 81. Huge respect for him for putting himself through that.
It almost feels as if AJ tried TOO hard to show her respect for Zamperini here, establishing his tough character and then feeling obliged to show this over and over again without actually trying to develop the character beyond this. It wouldn't be disrespectful to show him as a normal human after the war and how he would cope with returning to normal life, which Im pretty sure is a huge part of his story.
Bottom line, if you don't know his story and don't want to read the book, go see it, if you know his story, maybe just catch this on DVD on a rainy Sunday as your not going to be blown away by AJ's attempt here. Please for god sake don't listen to reviews like "A MUST SEE" and "BEST FILM OF THE DECADE" as by all the mixed reviews, it isn't. One thing that is 99% consisted however is O'Connells strong performance which I completely agree with and hope his is in the running for the Best Actor category at next years Oscars.