Unbreakable (2000)
Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Robyn Wright Penn; d. M. Night Shyamalan; D+

Superhumans are usually associated with comic books. They are people with astounding streignth, people who seem to be unharmed by anything except for one simple thing that could kill them (such as Superman's kryptonite). Usually they use their superpowers to help those in trouble. But, what if there hare superhumans amongst us? Superhumans who have not realized their powers and thus go on living as if they were normal human beings. If you believed that they existed, what would you do to find them, and what would you do once you have found them? What if you were the superhuman, what would you do with your power? This is precicely the thing that director/writer M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense) asks in his new, and unfortunatley flawed, film Unbreakable.

Unbreakable tells the Strangers on A Train-like story of two men: One, David (Willis), a security guard with a son and estranged wife (Penn). The other, Elija (Jackson), is a severely crippled man whose bones are very weak, so weak in fact that his nickname is "Mr. Glass" because his bones are almost always broken. He is the owner of an art gallery and has an obsessive love of comic books. In the begening of the movie we see David on a train, sitting by himself. A few minutes after the credits are done, we see David in a hospital, where we learn he is the only survivor of a deadly train derailment. Days later, when he leaves from a memorial service for the victims of the derailment, he finds a card underneith his windsheild with the message "How many days have you been sick?" Confused and curious, David goes out of his way to find out the answer to the cryptic question. It turns out that nobody, not even himself, can remember David ever being sick. Also on the card is the name of an art gallery which turns out to be Elija's. Elija was the one who sent him the card and the one who asked the question. When asked by David about why he had sent him this card, Elija proceeds to tell him about superhumans and comic books. What happens after this incident has its heart in the right place but can't seem to pull itself off: Elija tries to make David take advantage of his superhuman powers and to become a superhero.

The major problem with Unbreakable is that M. Night Shyamalan wrote it. Shyamalan as a writer, as evident with the good but flawed The Sixth Sense, has a nack for coming up with brilliant plots and well-crafted characters, but when it comes to writing dialouge and the execution of the plot, well, that's were he fails. Shyamalan wants to create "mature" films, credible films, but he constantly contradicts himself by having these purely childish overtones to them. If you get down to the point, The Sixth Sense is a thinly veiled Disney film about a lonely kid with an imaginary friend. Shyamalan poorly covers this up by adding to the fact that this kid's imaginary friend, or friends in this case, and I can't put this any better, are scary ghosts. Scary ghosts that have bleeding scars or injuries, that puke, that still hang by ropes, etc. And of course the kid's scared of them. But that's about it. In Unbreakable's case, we have the basic Superman story: A man who has superpowers and is just now finding out that he has them, so now he can become a superhero and save the world! To veil this up with a peice of transperent plastic, this time the superhero is a middle-aged, balding man with a marriage that is in shambles and a kid who just doesn't understand (anything). And his villian this time isn't some evil psycho who's bent on world domination, but a poor, crippled black man who has been teased all of his life and just wants to know "where he stands" (but it turns out that he actually IS a psycho!). It's almost heartbreaking to see such complex characters put in such idiotic situations, and such brilliant plots broken, like a peice of glass, just because of a rather egotistical writer. Shyamalan needs a script doctor, someone who will take his ideas and his characters and put them in more worthy situtations so that they become believable, more interesting, and more affective. But unfortunatley he didn't get one, and thus it's Shyamalan's idiotic dialouge, plot execution, and idea (which could've worked but unfortunatley rubbed off as a bunch of comic book-readin' school boy crock) that completely ruins the film.

But, I do have to give credit were credit is due. Even though the plot execution, well, sucked, Unbreakable does offer up a very interesting character study between Elija and David. With the world "Hitchcockian" being thrown around like a cheap rag, this is one of the few movies that actually diserve to be called as such. As I said before this is very much like Strangers On A Train (as well as Shadow of a Doubt), with its two very different characters meeting by accident. In Strangers On A Train, the two main characters, Guy and Bruno, meet by accident on a train. In Unbreakable, David and Elija are brought together because of a train accident. In Strangers, Bruno knows all about Guy after obsessivley reading about him (and his marital problems) in the paper, while Guy has no idea who Bruno is. David equally has no idea who Elija is, but Elija knows who David is by reading about him in the newspaper. Also Shyamalan's way of connecting the two main characters is extreamly reminicent of Hitchcock. In the begening of Unbreakable, David is told by a confused doctor that he is the only survior of a train wreck, and that he is unharmed. Then we are transported back to the early 60's in a department store. This deals with the birth of a baby boy, Elija, who, as discovered by a shocked and confused doctor, is the only injured person in the store. This was done by Hitchcock years ago with Shadow of a Doubt in which the two main characters, Uncle Charlie and his neice, Charlie, are connected in the begening of the film by similar scenes begenning with both lying on beds. The two men are similarily connected throughout the film.

The characters of Unbreakable are undeniably complex and are each enahnced by the brilliant performances of the actors playing them, especially the lead actors. Willis further proves that yes, he can act, again, and is believable as an everyman who is thrown into an unusual incident. His acting for more serious, darker films recently can't help but remind me of James Stewart who also similarily took chances on darker roles which contradicted his real-life and cinematic persona of the all-American nice guy. Also contradicting himself and thus showing great range is Jackson, who we normally see as the badass black guy who kicks butt. Here he plays a man who isn't a badass, and who doesn't kick butt because he simply can't. Elija is the most complex character in the film, a man driven to madness and crime because of his unfortunate weekness and the constant taunts of people who simpy can't understand or sympathise with his situation. Jackson is completely believable in this role. However, as I said before, his talents as well as Willis's and others' are wasted because of this extreamly flawed script.

I do see potential with Shyamalan, a lot of potential. I believe, after seeing The Sixth Sense and especially Unbreakable, that Shyamalan may be the one modern mainstream director closest to Hitchcock. Shyamalan's story and film structures are almost the same, even though both considerably have different styles. For example Shyamalan, as by judging by his two recent films, prefers to dabble in the supernatural while Hitchcock rarely did (and when he did, it was later revealed to be false supernaturality). But like Hitchcock, Shyamalan knows how to build suspense, and how to frieghten, by doing it straight-foward without any tricks. He also knows how to use the camera, how to manipulate colors for a dramatic affect, how to use the lighting, etc. One doesn't need people peering out their rear windows or men getting obsessed with evasive blondes in order to be Hitchcockian. And who knows, maybe Shyamalan is so Hitchcockian that Unbreakable will eventually be more universally accepted and praised like Hitchcock's films (such as Rear Window which opened to mixed reviews like Unbreakable) are now. Time will only tell, and hopefully Shyamalan will still be working then!

© Vert A Go Go Reviews 2000