Interesting Story at First, but Falls Victim to Poor Pacing and Character Development

Rating: 6/10 (6 April 2015)

Unbroken is the true story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who ends up in a Japanese POW camp in WWII. His story of survival against the odds is inspiring, but it would be more so if not for this clumsy adaptation.
The movie starts out interestingly enough, with Louis in a squadron of bombers mounting an attack in the Pacific. Then we flash back to his childhood and see him develop an interest in, and talent for, running, which saves him from a life of petty crime. The bomber makes it back to base, but is quickly called back out for a rescue mission with few repairs (another movie that shows the contempt the army seems to have had in WWII for the lives of low-ranking young men). Of course, the plane immediately breaks down and crashes, killing all but three on board. The three men (eventually two) and their fight for survival could have been an interesting movie in and of itself (a Life of Pi sort of thing), but that part of the story ends many weeks later when the men are captured by the Japanese and sent to a jungle prison, then eventually a prison near Tokyo.
The biggest problem with the movie is that all of this takes a lot of time, so that by the time he ends up in the main prison camp with his main adversary, The Bird, the movie is running out of running time. That leaves very little time for character development, especially of The Bird, who is the prison camp's commanding officer.
At one point, The Bird starts starts torturing Louis by making him hold a large price of wood above his head and ordering one of his men to shoot him if he drops it, an image that's featured on the poster. The Bird gets so angry when Louis doesn't drop it that he starts to beat him. Then, out of nowhere, he starts to cry. If we had spent more time with The Bird, we might have understood his motivation, but because we don't see him for more than a few scenes, he remains a mystery.
The movie ends on a positive note, with Louis coming to terms with his capture and eventually returning to Japan to run in the Olympic Torch relay. However, I can't help feel that this would have been much more powerful if we had better understood Louis' experience in the Japanese prison camp and we hadn't spent so much time on the raft and flashing back to childhood.