Saturday, October 26, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Unbreakable

No, not Kimmy Schmidt. This is the M. Night Shyamalan film from 2000 starring Bruce Willis (hey, like I promised!) and Samuel L. Jackson. It's the first of a three-part "trilogy" that includes two more movies on my horizon: Split and Glass.

So how was the first entry in this saga? Well, let's just say that if I hadn't received such inspirational reviews of the second and third films, this might have been where my journey stopped.

The beginning of the movie is actually really well done. It introduces us to Willis' character, David Dunn, showing us that he's got some charm, that he's having marital trouble, and then sets off the story by putting him in a catastrophic train wreck as the sole survivor. But after that, Dunn becomes almost completely uninteresting and uncharismatic. Willis plays the role very similar to his role in The Sixth Sense, but that character was supposed to be a man literally haunted by the events of his life. This character should have some kind of personality. And I say that as someone who loves Captain America, admittedly one of the less flamboyant heroes. You gotta give me something.

Jackson's portrayal of Elijah Price is much more interesting, but that's how it goes with antagonists, right? That's how you knew he was the bad guy: he was eminently more watchable and compelling than Willis.

I think ultimately this movie suffered from the success of The Sixth Sense. It seems like Shyamalan "learned" too much from that movie, and employed character work and cinematography that wasn't quite right for this movie. But I trust the recommendations I've received enough that I'll give Split and Glass a shot.

One last thing. Just before the end credits, the movie does a freeze-frame and text-based post-script. "David Dunn led authorities to... Elijah Price is now..." etc. In a fictional, serious movie, this feels completely out of place. It makes sense in Remember The Titans, because you want to know the real world "whatever happened to..." about a number of characters. And it makes sense in like Animal House, because Animal House is an unserious movie. In this film, a serious dramatic but fictional story, it just feels strange. One more oddity in a movie full of less-than-exceptional quirks.


Wondering if I'm way off base? You can check out Unbreakable on your own! Click here to check out where you can stream it today on JustWatch.


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