Saw it. How could I ever complain about anything again? I’ll just remember the torture I endured sitting through two and a half hours of Angelina’s and the Coen bros collective view of zampirini a life which was a little mischievousness followed by a rather inexplicable success in the Olympics with a sudden airplane ride peppered with ridiculous Helen Keller jokes and getting shot at by, we suppose, the Japanese, and two hours of the 70+ day raft drift during which he fights with his raft mates in an out of a British then bad Italian accent all the while sporting a perfectly sculpted goatee
Oh and then another toe tapping lay interminable view of him in pow camp getting abused by a cross dressing Japanese pop star whom the younger audience members know as such and giggle at
His motivation for survival is, not the logical devotion to family and faith, noted in the book, and for which makes fun of his raft mate, but getting home to his mother’s gnocchi recipe
Kids will have zero idea from this torture inflicted on them what he was doing there, what the war was about, motivations, relationships among the troops, other characters in the war, or why anyone would recommend this movie to anyone
It is torture
And Jolie is getting a complete pass on this
No
I thought so. Excellent review and thanks for saving me $8.00.
The teenaged crew (four) I took to see Unbroken last night immediately began relating the fanaticism of Japan circa 1943 with Islam 2014. I’m am soooo glad Jolie did not insult my intelligence with a protracted backstory about WWII.
The movie just does not nail the prison of war experience. Even though they had to keep in the guidelines of the PG-13, there are ways to do the barbaric treatment by the Japanese to bring home the reality.
There were problems with the movie that I know will be seen as knit-picky. I will spare my entire list.
The story of Louis Zamperini's road to the Olympics was done well and inspiring. Why he didn't do so well in his race was not told. It did not tell of Louis' weight gain on the voyage over to Germany. The food aboard the ship was too much for him to resist. I would have wanted that tidbit of information.
During the opening ceremony, Zamperini and a Japanese athlete were shown nodding at each other. The Japanese athlete was the prison camp tormentor, Mutsuhiro "The Bird" Watanabe! What? Later in the prison camp, out trots "The Bird" and nothing is made about the Olympics encounter.
The B-24 was laden with eight long range Browning M2 .50 caliber machine guns: one in the nose, one in the belly, two in a tail turret, two in a dorsal turret (just aft of the cockpit), and two in the waist. The movie showed incredible trouble by the machine gun operators in knocking out the Japanese Zeros. The M2 wasn't called "Ma Deuce" for nothing. The movie showed the crew's airplane shot up like Swiss cheese. Why such a poor shooting performance? Hello!
The prison camp was moved to a coal transportation hub in a Japanese bay somewhere. It showed the prisoners packing coal off the barge, up a high staircase and up a ramp to the train car. The packs, strapped to their shoulders, were bucket-shaped and seemed to carry a huge weight of coal. Prisoners worked from early morning to nightfall. I cannot imagine why the Japanese used this method for transferring coal from a barge to a railroad car. Certainly conveyor belts and bucket elevators would have done it more efficiently--or a better design of the transfer station. The Japanese weren't that stupid!
There are many other holes in this movie that makes it like the Swiss cheese of the B-24 Liberator we saw in the movie.
In the real story of Zamperini, he is saved by his Christian faith after the war. He was converted at the 1949 Billy Graham crusade in Los Angeles. He threw away his cigarettes and booze and would go on to support Victory Boys camp, a place where young addicts received treatment. All was made about Zamperini's survival but nothing was made of his redemption. That is the huge hole that shoots down this movie for me.