Lacks investment in character.

Rating: 6/10 (3 February 2015)

This time last year we thought the Best Picture of 2015 was a done deal, albeit a thoroughly baity one. Unbroken makes no secret that it feels like Chariots of Fire + Life Of Pi + The Bridge on the River Kwai. Plus you got a team of the Coen brothers behind the script, Roger Deakins behind the camera (the aesthetics feel like Changeling 2.0) and director Angelina Jolie hot off an honorary Oscar. Nevertheless, the bait has failed and this will not be the Best Picture of the year. The Academy is wise to go for unconventional films Boyhood and Birdman for a refreshing change. There's nothing bad about Unbroken, it's just incredibly bland without anything new or insightful to say. The problem is that it doesn't once get you in Louis Zamperini's head. This is a very idyllic representation of him, and idyllic representations of characters are hard to latch onto.
Sure, you can chuck a barrage of punches on a character, but there needs to be a bigger reason to invest. Any dilemma he's faced with is greeted with contrived courage and sacrifice, as hard as Jack O'Connell tries to bring the character out in rare loud moments. The first 20 minutes of flashbacks are designed to persuade us to chant 'come on Louie' with the side characters, but it fails to give a convincing argument as to why. We know the theme of the film and the fact that he survived and so the film lacks a vital tension to keep it involving. However the film is never explicitly bad, though the episodic structure of the boat scenes needed development, it's simply weak where it could've had potential to be actually inspirational. It just doesn't give us enough beyond the surface when there was plenty of time to do so. Certainly watchable, but it's not a treat.
6/10