Movie Review: Unbreakable

How is it possible that I’ve never seen this movie? How is it possible that nobody ever told me about this film? That I’ve never even heard about it? Made nearly a decade ago, Unbreakable (2000) is a story masterpiece. Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson plays against each other in this peculiar suspense thriller / drama about a man faced with the possibility that he may be a superhero.

It is the story that Hancock (2008) could never be. Unbreakable is not an action adventure superhero story. It is a riveting drama, depicting heartache and loss. A story of an estranged husband and wife struggling with their crumbling marriage; of a father and son relationship torn apart by uncertainties; of a man in search of himself. It's a story of tragedies, and of reconciliation. And it is a surprising story that ever stays clear of the stereotypical superhero film, while at the same time being a tribute to all superhero stories.

The cinematography, like the story, unfolds in slow pans. There are hardly any special effects. The acting is subtle and authentic (even for Willis). The music score is ever complimentary – never interrupting. The writer and director of Unbreakable is Manoj Night Shyamalan, who also wrote The Sixth Sense (1999), Signs (2002), and Lady in the Water (2006). I’m yet to see the latter. With Unbreakable’s script and directing, Shyamalan has suddenly become one of my favourite writers and directors.

Having said this, Unbreakable is probably to slow a movie for the action junkie movie watchers of today. It is probably too quiet. The slightly skewed family relations are probably not dysfunctional enough for what one would expect of Hollywood. In so many aspects, this movie refuses to be what one expects it to be, and for this reason I can see why many people wouldn’t necessarily like it.

I’m mad because I nearly missed out on one of the greatest superhero scripts of the decade. Where was I in 2000?

O yeah, now I remember. It was one of the worst years of my life. The movie probably showed while I was alone at home, after hearing of a tragic accident; or standing by the grave of my girlfriend whom died in a car crash; or by the bedside of a friend in hospital with the doctors predicting grim probabilities.