Unbreakable

Plot synopsis:
The film opens as we see a baby being born in west Philadelphia. This is Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson). Elijah is so brittle that he is born with broken arms and legs. As he grows older, he is taunted at school and called Mr. Glass by his classmates since he is so fragile. As an adult, he runs a successful high priced comic book art gallery specializing in original drawings of super heroes.David Dunn (Bruce Willis) is a security guard at the local college stadium. His marriage is crumbling and in fact, his wife, Audrey Dunn (Robin Wright Penn), sleeps downstairs in their son's room, and David sleeps upstairs with his son (Spencer Treat Clark).On his way back home from a job interview in New York, David's train malfunctions and derails, killing everyone on board except David. He doesn't even have a scratch. After the memorial service for the crash victims, David finds a note on his windshield. It's from a store named "Limited Edition" (Elijah's store) and the note asks, "How many days of your life have you been sick?"David asks his boss and his wife but no one can ever remember him being sick. David takes his son to "Limited Edition" where he meets Elijah.Elijah explains his theory to David...
If Elijah can be born with brittle bones and very easily hurt, shouldn't there be someone the exact opposite? Elijah has researched every disaster to find a sole survivor without a scratch but has had no luck. After years of searching, he finally has found one in David Dunn.David thinks it's interesting but really just thinks Elijah is nuts. Back at the stadium, David gets a call that there is someone there trying to sneak in and asking for David. It's Elijah and he starts explaining his comic book theories to David. Theories about everyday men being super heroes, having powers they haven't yet realized and so on. David bumps into a guy in line and tells the security at the end of the line to start frisking people. They watch as the guy David bumped in to, sees everyone being frisked and leaves the line. Elijah asks David what that was all about and David tells him that when he bumped him, he had an image of a certain kind of handgun.David goes back to work but Elijah follows the guy David bumped into. They go down a long flight of stairs, Elijah falls shattering his leg and breaking several other bones but the last thing he sees is the man's handgun, just as David described it. Elijah was right, David does have some kind of special gift.Back at home, David is working out in the basement with his weight set. His son believed everything Elijah said about David being a hero with a special gift. David still doesn't believe. David asks his son to take some weight off but without him knowing, he puts more weight on. David lifts 250 lbs, the most he's ever done. His son continues putting on more weight until David is now up to 350lbs. He has had all this strength all along that he never knew.Elijah needs his leg rehabbed and his nurse is Audrey, David's wife. Elijah asks her questions about her and David and she explains to him how when they were going out, David was a star football player but got in a car accident due to icy roads. David never played football again. It was because of that, that she and David were married. Had he continued to play, she knows they would have grown apart.Back at work, David gets a call from his son's school that his son has been hurt. His son had hoped that some of David's super hero traits had rubbed off on him. He tried to protect someone that was being picked on and instead got hurt in the process. The school nurse remembers David from when he was at that same school. In fact, it was because of David that they have strict rules about the pool. It seems that David had been picked on near the pool when he was a student there. He fell in and was left in the pool to drown. He was found at the bottom of the pool but somehow survived.David tells this story to Elijah, that in fact, David can get hurt. Elijah tells him that every super hero has a weakness. David's kryptonite is water. The water from the pool and the water from the icy roads.David's wife decides that him surviving the train crash is a sign that maybe they should give their marriage another try. They go out on a "date" and he explains to her that he felt their marriage was over when he stopped waking her up after he had a bad dream.The next night, David breaks into the train station and examines some of the wrecked trains. He starts recalling his own car crash from years earlier and remembers that he wasn't hurt at all. In fact, he had to use his superhuman strength to rescue Audrey from the flaming vehicle.He goes to Elijah and tells him he is right, he has never been sick or injured in any way. Elijah tells him that it's no coincidence that David is in the security field. He needs to go to where people are and protect them.It's a rainy day and David, wearing a hooded rain poncho heads to Penn station. Hundreds of people are passing by. Whenever someone bumps into David he has a vision of that person doing something evil. One is a jewel thief, another a rapist, but when the maintenance man bumps into him, David gets a horrible vision. The vision is of the man going to someone's home and killing the homeowner.David, still wearing the poncho now looking more and more like a super hero's cape, follows the guy as he leaves work. The guy goes to a nice house in a nice neighborhood. David sneaks in the back and finds the dead homeowner inside. He goes upstairs and rescues two sisters tied up in their bathroom. He goes into another room and finds the mother tied up. The window is open and David looks out. When he turns back around, there is the maintenance worker who pushes David out the window. David lands on the backyard pool that has its winter cover on. Suddenly, the cover starts collapsing with David's weight and he gets all tangled up underwater with the cover. He is drowning again but the two sisters force a pole down to him and David grabs it and is saved.David heads back upstairs and wrestles with the guy and finally kills him by breaking his neck.The next scene is David back at home, hanging up his cape, er um.. poncho, and carrying his sleeping wife upstairs to their bed. She wakes up and asks him what is wrong. "I had a bad dream" he says.In the morning while having breakfast, David slides the newspaper over to his son and holds a finger to his mouth to shush him. The headline tells of a mystery hero that saved the two girls. The picture is an artist's rendition of what the girls saw. It shows a superhero-like figure with a hood and cape. The boy looks up at his dad and David just smiles and nods.David goes to Elijah's gallery where Elijah is having a huge gathering for a special show. He and David go to Elijah's back office so they can discuss what had happened. Elijah has been in a wheelchair since his fall. He is real proud of David and they shake hands.Suddenly...Just like Christopher Walken in Stephen King's "The Dead Zone", while shaking hands, David has a vision of Elijah setting a building on fire, another vision of Elijah causing a plane crash and finally, a vision of Elijah exiting the driving compartment of David's train that crashed. David looks around Elijah's office and is horrified at what he sees. Newspaper clippings of hundreds of disasters from around the world. Elijah is the mastermind behind all these events and has staged them for his own selfish benefit.Just like in the comics, every evil villian needs a worthy adversary and Elijah has finally found his.David backs away in horror as Elijah, who in his wheelchair now looks more like Professor X of the X-men, proclaims..."They call me Mr. Glass!"Just before the final credits, a message appears that says that David contacted the authorities and Elijah is now in a mental institution.

Tags: murder, cult, horror, atmospheric, flashback, good versus evil, plot twist, storytelling

Review:
Yet I know other people who think Signs is his best, specifically because of the way the alien plot line accentuates the central one.Unbreakable is a beautifully simple film, but I think it has to hit you just right for you to completely get it.
Samuel L Jackson's character history is really nicely crafted in the middle of the other plot lines and you get genuinely involved in the people Shyamalan has created.Don't get caught up in all the talk of the twist ending.
If you don't like slow movies, just don't watch this because it moves at a very sedate pace, but I personally think you'll be missing out.
A little character development would have been appreciated, but if the ending was a result of the time-constraint guillotine, then I would expect the developmental scenes to have gone too.The thing that people seem to complain most about this movie is the plot.
His character is amazing and just leaves me shaking my head.This is a pretty low-key movie with the other star, Bruce Willis, playing an extremely subdued role for him, almost too subdued.
I'll just call an interesting fantasy-horror film with a little family story tied in with Willis' wife (Robin Wright) and young boy (Spencer Treat Clark)."Unbreakable" is beautifully filmed, has very little profanity in it, and a strange, strange story with a great twist at the end....one of the best I've ever seen in a movie.
Both are excellent dramas, but Unbreakable was superior in every aspect.I especially admired the camera movement, and the framing of certain scenes to bring to life an actual comic-book.
Night Shyamalan's next movie is at least half as good as Unbreakable, I'll definitely be in line to buy a ticket..
David develops his talents with the support of Price and his son Joseph and, despite his cynicism, starts to try to use his powers to help people on need.The 6th sense was always going to be a hard show to follow up but Shyamalan has managed to make a film that is almost as clever, emotive, thoughtful and slow.
Thinking about the twist will stop you enjoying the main story and will spoil the film for yourself.Willis is excellent - he doesn't set the world on fire, but he does a very low-key performance as a common man confronted with so much potential responsibility.
Willis and Jackson should keep making films together from now on, cause even there worst collaboration so far has still been good - Pulp Fiction, Unbreakable, Die Hard With a Vengeance - it seems to be a winning partnership (Loaded Weapon 1 doesn't count as Willis is only in it for 5 seconds!).
A surprise addition to the cast is Eamonn Walker as Dr Mathison, it's a small role but he is a fine actor and deserves to be seen in big films (check him out in HBO's Oz for a real show of his abilities).Overall it's very slow and may frustrate some people, but if you got the 6th sense then you'll probably get this.
Jackson give very authentic performances that help the film keep its "Any Town USA" and "Average Joe Six-pack" feel very much alive.By virtue of ingenuity and most likely a meticulous preproduction period, Unbreakable manages to be a consummate clinic in directing, writing, acting, and cinematography.
The final plot twist  in "The Sixth Sense" made me wonder whether its director could repeat such a stunt, in "Unbreakable".
And then, exactly like in "The Sixth Sense", he pulls the carpet right from under us, in the final seconds of the movie takes away everything, every expectation, he first gave us.
An hour and a half into this movie I wondered how Shyamalan would wrap the film up in a nice little package, without room for a sequel.
Most of the plaudits for Sixth Sense went to the kid and Twelve Monkeys to Pitt, although Jackson is superb as usual, Bruce Willis steals the movie with a subtleness most screen stars cannot portray.
As an adult he lives alone and becomes a comic book art dealer.David Dunn (Bruce Willis) gave up a promising football career after a car accident he wasn't even injured in.
This intriguing picture with twist ending revolves around a security guard named David Dunn (Bruce Willis) who miraculously survives a catastrophic train crash outside Philadelphia .
Night Shyamalan makes cameo appearances in his own movies, like Alfred Hitchcock, one of his favorite directors , this time as a Stadium drug dealer .
Well produced and directed by Night Shyamalam , many of his films have car crashes playing pivotal roles and involve two ordinary individuals with extraordinary abilities or events happening to them , one of the people either has connections to a child or is a child, and the one connected to the child is always having marital difficulties .
Night Shyamalan was still making movies like this.Bruce Willis plays David Dunn, a man unhappy with his marriage and his relationship with his son.
When his train back from New York derails, David is the only survivor and he is sought out by a fragile man named Elijah, who believes David is special.This could easily be cheesy, but Shyamalan wisely plays up the comic-book feeling of the plot while maintaining a certain sense of reality.
In my opinion, this is indicative of the fact the movie going public no longer understands what makes a good film or even recognizes one when they see it.
Night Shyamalan gave his audience in The Sixth Sense, he treats them like complete idiots in Unbreakable, making sure he drops a small foreshadowing to the audience before hitting them over the head with the actual event to make sure they understood.
Top this off with one of the most ridiculous scenes ever put on film in a serious movie (those who have seen it will probably know what I am talking about, those who don't heed my warning and go see it anyway, just watch for the scene with the kid and the gun), and you have a self-indulgent pile of trash unworthy of even going straight to video.
I don't know if Shyamalan was rushed to get this out, or if he got Kevin Costner syndrome after the success of his first movie and decided that he could mail one in, but Unbreakable is Unthinkably bad.
The comic book movie genre of film has been around for quite some time, and this is definitely one of the best of them.A quiet realistic study of what one portion does when they find they are a super hero...M Night Shyamalan is a great director and one of the true original directors working in film production today.
So many awkward dramatic moments, like we experience in real life...all the time loosely at least trying to follow the rules established by the fantasy world of the comic book hero.People have criticised this movie, but many have not realised what the director is trying to do first before laying fault at him.A great movie, my favorite of his work..
All of the characters were very lifelike and at the same time they looked like they come right out of a comic book, that is the best thing about this film..
Great idea.They could have had a classic here where in which the subject of stronger than usual individuals in our everyday reality (the best athletes,soldiers etc.) could have been explored and mirrored with that of the comic book genre writing.Oh the possibilities for that one!But they messed it up!If they wanted a movie that had Willis with paranormal qualities,they should have done this with more action.If they really wanted to make a movie basically for the plot twist in the end,they should not have indicated too blatantly that Willis had paranormal powers.They should have kept us guessing to the end although tend to keep the audience leaning toward the opinion that he MAY have powers,so this way,we can be fooled along with Willis and come to realise he is not as super as Jackson claimed he was.We were all carried away by the insane Jackson.Now that would have been more like it.But no!They showed us those very clear cut scenes of Willis displaying more than your run of the mill Michael Jordan abilities,keenly stating that Willis did indeed have paranormal superhuman abiities.No question about that fact.This mistake really watered down the intended "realisation" plot twist in the end.Still entertaining though and the acting was superb.But it breaks my heart thinking of what this movie could have been like without that simple mistake........
There was absolutely no suspense in this movie, the story became very predictable, and there are no real surprise twists at the end.This movie is a poor follow up to the "Sixth Sense" and anyone expecting the same type or quality of movie may end up very disappointed..
It tired to make that sudden twist at the end like in "The Sixth Sense", but this time it failed.
In "The Sixth Sense", the twist at the end was so emotional, gut wrenching, and thought provoking because during the whole movie you were being drawn into the story.
The scene changes were too abrupt and the development of the characters and storyline(s) were minimal.I had been looking forward to this movie since the first time that I had seen the previews for it, but it was nothing like what I had expected.
Overall it felt like a money grab.At the end of the film, which I had difficulty waiting for, I felt as though I should have been reimbursed not only for my tickets and popcorn, but also for the time that I lost watching it.My advice: wait for it on your local satelite provider....I'm not even sure you could justify the cost of a video rental..
After all it's a pity that actors like Bruce Willis or Samuel L.Jackson went in a film like this for we all know from a lot of different productions about their real skills.
M. Night Shyamalan followed up "The Sixth Sense" with the not-quite-as-great, but no less fascinating, "Unbreakable".
Night film, they either respond with The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable and this shouldn't be surprising, this is truly one of his greatest works, the directing is amazing and the cinematography is just gorgeous, Bruce Willis and Samuel L.
For me, The Sixth Sense is M Night Shyamalan's best film, but Unbreakable comes very, very close.
Bruce Willis and Samuel L.Jackson are both fantastic, and one wonders why they didn't do more together.Some have been dismissive of the ending, I actually thought it was fine, though I was underwhelmed by it on my first viewing a few years back.
I did say before that The Sixth Sense's ending was the only one of a Shyamalan film that worked, after re-watching Unbreakable I take that back.
The film does err on occasion (a sequence in a comic book shop at night is confusing, and the picture's main color scheme--steely blues and grays--becomes visually monotonous), however the wonderful script and performances take the movie to a higher realm for this genre.
So, I rented some more movies, and I had this great story "Unbreakable" about real life super hero's and villains.
Its impression of seriousness is bogus.The family drama which occupies the foreground most of the time is in fact incredibly ordinary: if you imagine this story shorn of its fantastical elements, it would barely pass muster as a TV movie of the week; and (more damagingly) that family story is in no way enriched or even much affected by the journeys taken by Willis's and Jackson's characters.
And I don't even think that this film tells us much about comic books or superhero origin stories -- certainly little that isn't squeezed into the opening couple of minutes of Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm" (itself no masterpiece).
Sixth Sense was okay, but I have a feeling (if this movie is at all representative of him as a director/writer) we can expect nothing from him except a nice long piece of film with which to wipe ourselves.
Bruce Willis' lethargic performance is boring to watch, and the supporting cast, including Samuel Jackson, struggle through the meandering, directionless script.
In fact, at least half a dozen times throughout the movie, I thought maybe here is where this film will come alive.
I found the "twist ending" in the "6th Sense" to be obvious from the beginning; "Unbreakable" is more of a twist movie.Watching it again this morning, I still wonder how I missed the many hints that were given to us by this director (upfront disclosure: I am a fan of all of his films), who makes his usual appearance in a scene with Our Hero, David Dunn, played by Bruce Willis.
The everyday name of Our Hero; the name of his girlfriend/wife Audrey Inverso (played by Robin Wright), who does inverse the direction Our Hero could have taken in his life; Our Hero's new friend Eijah Price, aka Mr. Glass, played by Samuel Jackson, whom the movie mostly focuses on in the last 2 minutes; all of these are clues to the directors intent.
I realize something new every time I watch "Unbreakable", and it is my favorite of Shyamalan's films.If you are a fan of the world created by comic books, please see this !
I have rarely been so conscious that I was in a movie theater watching a really bad film other than maybe squirming through the awful Sin City (another comic book conversion disaster).
Now we have Unbreakable, a slow and deliberately paced mystery that manages to be one of the best "superhero" films I've ever seen.The thing with this movie is that it understands comic books.
Robin Wright Penn combines the right mix of love and exasperation as Bruce Willis's wife, and Spencer Treat Clark, as their son, is another kid actor that Hollywood needs to look out for.Many people don't like the ending to this movie, but you know what?
The shots and angles helped provide a better feel for the movie, yet it was still a hard film to watch because the story was hard to understand, as well as hard to see exactly what the plot of the story really was..
Unbreakable isn't too much different, with only a few minor things making it no masterpiece.The story follows a average security guard in Philly played by Bruce Willis, who is in a train when it crashes, being the only survivor, with no injuries sustained.
Some things in common with Shyamalan's past success (an unraveling plot, lovingly played out performances, conflicted ending) with not only the obvious, but also that he has such a trust in his audience of patience and understanding, it is a wonder films like these are made anymore.
With only flaw being a scene of comic book wonder, this film may not be as ground breaking as Sense, but it comes close.
Some other reviewers have compared this to the "Sixth Sense," an earlier movie starring Bruce Willis.
Most of the movie is spent with his son and Samuel Jackson (playing the security guard's polar opposite, a brittle boned and accident prone comic book collector, trying to convince the security guard that he is really supposed to be a superhero.Eventually he is convinced to spend an evening as a kind of vigilante looking for some evildoing to thwart, sort of like a neighborhood watch volunteer who goes on patrol with no cell phone to call 911, no flashlight, and no weapon.
Night Shyamalan....Star-Studded Cast with Brilliant performances from Bruce Willis as David Dunn & Samuel L.
Although he has directed a few misfires since "Unbreakable", Shyamalan is a talented writer and director, and this film is well worth watching..
It's not something that isn't achievable again when comparing it at the time because there were not too many comic books movies or related to superheroes.
Night Shyamalan always provided a twist which was never expected even though I didn't like "The Sixth Sense" for several reasons.
"Unbreakable" seems to be an underrated movie from all the movies that the director worked on and in fact, they don't like it because it's not like "The Sixth Sense's" plot twist at the time.
Well, I prefer this movie rather than "The Sixth Sense" which I think is predictable compared to this."Unbreakable" focuses more on the process of achieving a conclusion and creating it to give a twist like M.
On the other hand, "Unbreakable" leads to the choice of the main character, whether he can accept the truth or not and I also didn't really see the twist coming at the end.This is a story about David Dunne, a security guard who cannot believe in himself because he was the only one who survived in a train accident that killed 100 more peoples.
Bruce Willis, who is also previously cast in "The Sixth Sense", gave his best performance that didn't attract some unique things, but he is just encouraged so much mysteries in this movie.
Night Shayamalan guilt in the past for being a terrible movie maker,but you must give credit where credit is due,because when he makes a good movie it's a very good movie.Bruce Willis's performance is fantastic,certainly nothing like any character he's played before,but Samuel L.
Unbreakable centres around two characters: David Dunn (Bruce Willis) and Elijah Price (Samuel L Jackson).
I have no specific liking of Shyamalan films (I liked Sixth Sense, but not Signs) but despite this, this is a great telling of a standard story but from a different perspective.
Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson are fabulous in the movie, and very well directed.
I was expecting something like in the Sixth Sense, life after the twist.Despite this the film is well worth watching, with breath taking performances from both Willis and Jackson, although personally...Jackson gets the nod everytime as the better.