Interesting History Doesn't Always Make Good Dramatic Entertainment

Rating: 2/10 (8 February 2015)

Unbroken is undoubtedly an attempt to pay tribute to a man who underwent overwhelming struggles and suffered terrible abuse during WWII in the Pacific. In paying that tribute, the writers decided to stick very closely to both the character of the man and the events as he recalled them.
This might have made a compelling documentary and certainly an excellent biography, but that doesn't necessarily make it a good piece of dramatic narrative filmmaking without some dramatic embellishment.
Unbroken doesn't offer anything but a quotidian and rather superficial examination of Olympic runner Louis Zamperini as a person. Similarly, the lack of anything approximating revealing dialog or interpersonal relationships contributes to something very close to a pornographization of suffering.
Fully half of the movie consists of showing his appalling suffering - first during his 47 days of starvation and thirst on a life raft at sea, and then during his time in a Japanese prisoner of war camp where he is specifically targeted as a permanent punching bag.
History doesn't make good drama without good writing to bring out what reality only reveals in retrospect. This is the central problem with 'Unbroken'.
I found it both brutal and boring. And that combination is a rather obscene one. Considering the Coen brother's skills, I am quite sure they were aware of what they were creating, and to me, that makes the intentions behind the film inhumane and banally obscene.