For those who thought that the sixth Sense was just a flash in the pan, ’Unbreakable’ should prove otherwise. If Shyamalan manages to consistently churn out more flicks in this genre, he will soon be spoken about as a master of the thriller genre of the this century,
The man takes us though the movie at a pace which most other directors would have found too slow to maintain and still keep the audiences attention. The story unfolds so slowly, you start believing that this time you will notice that one little detail, which Shyamalan will use at the end of the movie for ’The Twist’. Shyamalan puts the carrot in front of the audience and challenges it to play detective. Of Course we all fall hook, line and sinker.
Samuel L. Jackson plays a man as fragile as glass. A medical problem makes him so vulnerable to injuries that he can fracture his toes if he so much as trips when he walks. He spends his childhood being called ’Mr. Glass’ and almost becomes a recluse. If there is something that can bring him out of his depressions are comic books, which his strong mother uses effectively to bribe him out of the house. HE grows up to be a comic book artist. The other thing that keeps him going is his search for the man at the other end of the spectrum. An ’Unbreakable’ human being.
Enter Bruce Willis. A common man with an unglamorous job. He plays a security guard whose marriage is almost on the rocks. A common American male specimen. The only love of his life is his son, a boy on the verge of teenage who hero-worships his father. The truth being that the closest his father came to being a hero was robbed of him by an accident. An accident that lead to the beginning of his married life and the end of a budding football career. What shakes his daily routine is a mammoth train accident, which he gets out of without as much as a bruise. A few days later he finds a card on his windshield, which says those words which turns his common man routine upside down. ’’ Have you ever in your life been sick’’. The card is planted by Jackson and so begins the Wills journey towards self-discovery.
The rest of the movie shows Willis trying to answer the question that can turn his life upside down and at the same time save his marriage. Jackson spends his time trying to convince himself and Willis that he indeed is the a superhero in the comic book sort of way. The root of this thinking stems from the comic book logic of an unbreakable superhero with a mission to end evil. Jackson believes that anyone with the gifts he believes Bruce has, is on earth with a mission to protect the less gifted.
The film meanders slowly through this unusual plot. Shyamalan takes his time to tell the story, but once he has done that ends it in a hurry. The movie has a usual Shyamalan twist at the end. The end may not hit one as hard as the Sixth Sense did, probably because this time we expected it. But it does shake you out of your seat, because no one can imagine the end in context of the entire movie.
The performances, from Willis to Jackson to Willis’ son are excellent. The real hero but is the script and the way it is handled by the writer. It’s a movie far above the rest of the bubble gum special effect movies that the studios insist on throwing at us at alarming regularity. Shyamalan tells the story without special effects, garish music or multicoloured superhero costumes. Despite this the movie packs an enormous punch.
Please do watch the movie but never reveal the end and spoil someone else’s experience