Movie Review: ‘Unbroken,’ Directed by Angelina Jolie

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Manohla Dargis

Unbroken Domhnall Gleeson, left, and Jack O’Connell
in the film, which opened on Christmas day. Credit Universal Pictures

HOLLYWOOD---Angelina Jolie opens “Unbroken” with a shot of a celestial blue sky that soon darkens with a battle scene so tense and fluidly choreographed that you quickly sense that, as a director, she leans closer to hell than heaven. With some narrative rejigging, a lot of compression and one significant exception, Ms. Jolie follows the lead of the book, which focuses on the first 25 years or so of Mr. Zamperini’s life. What the movie ends up in desperate need of is a sense of life made real and palpable through dreadful, transporting details, not a life embalmed in hagiographic awe. You can find that movie here, at times, tucked amid the crane shots and angelic singing, though mostly in the perverse intimacy that emerges between Louie and the sadistic officer, Watanabe (Miyavi), and shows just how personal war can really be. [link]