Want to have a really un-fun time? Try to look up a list of "Best Suspense Films of all time" on the web. You'll find lists from Looper, Esquire, IGN and of course IMDB. Now IMDB won't tell you, but they don't make lists. Lists are made by users, and are the sole opinion of those users on what to include and what to leave out.
The reason I bring this up is because "Unbreakable" showed up on those lists, when I was getting ready to write a review of "Cape Fear," which I will do later. Unbreakable, a suspense movie? I doubt it. Unbreakable doesn't belong on those lists any more than "The Dark Knight", "The Dark Night Rises" and "The Maltese Falcon" (which were all laughably included). But, Unbreakable is possibly the greatest superhero film of all time.
Bruce Willis plays a man who miraculously survives a train wreck, when every other person on the train was either seriously hurt or killed. If fact, he isn't even scratched. The incident all goes by the wayside for him in his mind (he's trying to figure out if he wants to keep his marriage together with Robin Wright) and have some kind of relationship with his son.
Meanwhile, a mysterious man called Elijah is stalking Willis's character (David), because he believes that he and David are linked. Elijah is expertly played by Samuel L Jackson, and we find out in the film that he believes David is the reciprocal of himself- that David is Unbreakable, and that Elijah's nickname is Glass, because he breaks at the slightest incident.
Willis goes about investigating Elijah's assertions, finding out that he can bench press a lot more weight than he thought he could, and asking his wife if she ever remembers a time when he was sick.
Unbreakable is exceptional because it takes the superhero tropes and turns them sideways. Not only does Willis not know he is an exceptional human, he is not sure if he wants to be, and if he is, what does that mean? Yes, we have seen the reluctant hero trope again and again, but M. Night Shyamalan's treatment of the material (he also wrote it) is grounded and full of tension. Normally the rule is: if one person writes, directs and produces a film, run away. Shyamalan breaks that trope too.
David is not sure what to make of Elijah, who owns a comic book shop, and is convinced that David is a "real" superhero, and goes about offering David advice on how to hone his abilities (along with strength and invulnerability, David may be able to perceive evil intention in people when he touches them) and fight bad guys. At the least, Elijah is delusional, at best, he could be insane- Joker level insane. In the end, there may be more to the Elijah/Glass connection than David suspects.
IMDB 7.3/10. Sorry that's way off. 8.5/10 for a superhero movie that is nearly perfect.
Comments