Other Titles • Unbreakable • No Ordinary Man • Untitled M. Night Shyamalan Project • Unbreakable - Unzerbrechlich (2000)
Synopses for Unbreakable (2000)
1.
When Unbreakable was released, Bruce Willis confirmed that the film was the first in a proposed trilogy. Viewed in that context, this is a tantalizing and audaciously low-key thriller, with a plot that twists in several intriguing and unexpected directions. Standing alone, however, this somber, deliberately paced film requires patient leaps of faith--not altogether surprising, since this is writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's daring follow-up to The Sixth Sense. While just as assured as that earlier, phenomenal hit, Unbreakable is the work of a filmmaker whose skill exceeds his maturity, its confident style serving a story that borders on juvenile. However, Shyamalan's basic premise--that comic books are the primary conduit of modern mythology--is handled with substantial relevance.
Willis plays a Philadelphia security guard whose marriage is on the verge of failing when he becomes the sole, unscathed survivor of a devastating train wreck. When prompted by a mysterious, brittle-boned connoisseur of comic books (Samuel L. Jackson), he realizes that he's been free of illness and injury his entire life, lending credence to Jackson's theory that superheroes--and villains--exist in reality, and that Willis himself possesses extraordinary powers. Shyamalan presents these revelations with matter-of-fact gravity, and he draws performances (including those of Robin Wright Penn and Spencer Treat Clark, as Willis's wife and son) that are uniformly superb. The film's climactic revelation may strike some as ultimately silly and trivial, but if you're on Shyamalan's wavelength, the entire film will assume a greater degree of success and achievement. --Jeff Shannon
(25 votes)
2.
UNBREAKABLE stars Bruce Willis as David Dunne, a Philadelphia security guard and the sole survivor of a disasterous train wreck. Not only is David still alive after the crash--he's completely unharmed. After this miraculous incident, he's contacted by the mysterious Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), a dealer of comic book art who seems to have the opposite physicality--his bones tend to snap like twigs. As Elijah attempts to help the reluctant hero realize his superhuman potential, David tries to make amends with his estranged wife (Robin Wright Penn) and son (Spencer Treat Clark).
Following the runaway success of THE SIXTH SENSE, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan once again teams up with Willis for another bleak supernatural tale with a surprising finale. Although Willis and Jackson are excellent in their roles, the highlights of the film are Eduardo Serra's cinematography and Shyamalan's direction, which are eerily atmospheric and inventive--in certain sequences, for example, entire scenes are shot as reflections on glass. UNBREAKABLE is a superhero film at heart, but Shyamalan's somber aesthetic transforms it into something far more intriguing.
(26 votes)
3.
In Unbreakable, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan reunites with Sixth Sense star Bruce Willis, comes up with another story of everyday folk baffled by the supernatural (or at least unknown-to-science) and returns to his home town, presenting Philadelphia as a wintry haunt of the bizarre yet transcendent. This time around, Willis (in earnest, agonised, frankly bald Twelve Monkeys mode) has the paranormal abilities, and a superbly un-typecast Samuel L. Jackson is the investigator who digs into someone else's strange life to prompt startling revelations about his own. David Dunn (Willis), an ex-jock security guard with a failing marriage (to Robin Wright Penn), is the stunned sole survivor of a train derailment. Approached by Elijah Price (Jackson), a dealer in comic book art who suffers from a rare brittle bone syndrome, Dunn comes to wonder whether Price's theory that he has superhuman abilities might not hold water. Dunn's young son Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark) encourages him to test his powers and the primal scene of Superman bouncing a bullet off his chest is rewritten as an amazing kitchen confrontation when Joseph pulls the family gun on Dad in a desperate attempt to convince him that he really is unbreakable (surely, "Invulnerable" would have been a more apt title). Half-convinced he is the real-world equivalent of a superhero, Dunn commences a never-ending battle against crime but learns a hard lesson about balancing forces in the universe.
Throughout, the film refers to comic-book imagery--with Dunn's security guard slicker coming to look like a cape, and Price's gallery taking on elements of a Batcave-like lair--while the lectures on artwork and symbolism feed back into the plot. The last act offers a terrific suspense-thriller scene, which (like the similar family-saving at the end of The Sixth Sense) is a self-contained sub-plot that slingshots a twist ending that may have been obvious all along. Some viewers might find the stately solemnity with which Shyamalan approaches a subject usually treated with colourful silliness offputting, but Unbreakable wins points for not playing safe and proves that both Willis and Jackson, too often cast in lazy blockbusters, have the acting chops to enter the heart of darkness. --Kim Newman
(23 votes)
4.
Security Guard David Dunn (Bruce Willis) miraculously survives a catastrophic train crash. Not only is he the sole survivor out of 132 passengers, he also is completely unharmed. Comic book specialist Elijah Price (Samuel Jackson) confronts David with an incredible theory: Elijah who has been nicknamed "Mr. Glass" due to his more than fragile bones, thinks that David has got all which he himself lacks. The two of them "seem to be linked by a curve, but sitting on opposite ends". David begins to discover the truth behind Mr. Price's assumptions. But after all, David's fate is not only to find his real place in the world. It is also about proving Elijah's theory of his own existance.
(17 votes)
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