Unattached

Rating: 5/10 (5 January 2015)

I really wanted to like this movie, but Angelina Jolie's storytelling caused me to lose the connection to the main character, Zam, once he and his friend Phil are separated.
From hearing about the book, I know that Zam goes through years of substance abuse and revenge plotting against the Japanese people for what the torturers did to him, but I never felt that in the movie.
I also never really understood why Zam was singled out by The Bird, and I never felt like he or any of the characters were in mortal danger.
I honestly only felt impressed by what he went through during the ocean scenes and the first imprisonment. The narration of the movie kinda felt like this: "I competed in the Olympics, my brother taught me to never give up, I survived 45 days at sea (long anecdote about the perils of the sea and losing my friend), I came home after being in a Japanese POW camp for two years."
I'm sure that the cliché "the book is better" applies here, and I know that Louis Zamperini has his own book that is considered better than this movie's namesake.
I wanted an emotional, unbelievable story where I cared about the characters... I got that for half a movie and proceeded to become unattached as the movie dragged on.
Score: 5/10