Unbroken (USA, 2014)

Nine Things About the Movie Unbroken

1. This movie is based on the true story of Louis Zamperini, a troubled kid that became an Olympic runner, and then fought in World War II, spent 47 days on a life-raft, and over 2 years in a Japanese POW camp.

2.  If you've seen the trailer to this movie, you've basically seen the whole movie, except for the violence.

3.  I know it's supposed to be inspirational, but this movie is my pick for the most feel-bad movie of 2014.

4.  The best scene of the movie is the first one, when we get to see a crew of American bombers in a sky battle. After that, nothing really happens except a guy goes through hell and is still alive at the end.

5.  A pretty big chunk of the movie shows the guys just floating along in a life raft, slowly dying. The POW camp doesn't come along until somewhere in the last half of the movie.

6.  The movie gets more brutal and violent as it goes along. I don't know how it got released with a PG-13 rating.

7.  As a break from scenes of helplessness, humiliation, and torture, we are sometimes treated to inspirational quotes such as:
   "The light always follows the darkness."
   "If you can take it, you can make it."
   "A moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory."
  I think those quotes were really for the audience, to encourage them to keep watching this movie.

8. The main Japanese character, Watanabe, was actually wanted for war crimes, so this movie runs with it and makes the Japanese look really evil. Some Japanese citizens are asking their government to not show the movie in Japan.

9. It's not a terrible movie, but it is so dramatic that it sometimes backfires.  And you should only go see it if you are interested in watching people survive a series of increasingly dehumanizing events. Otherwise, despite what the title of the movie is, you may finish the movie feeling kind of broken yourself.