Unbroken

Unbroken (2014) tells the life of Louis Zamperini: Olympic runner, airman, castaway and prisoner of war. Zamperini ran at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Serving on a bomber in the Second World War, his aircraft came down in the Pacific. He drifted on a raft with two crewmates for forty seven days. He was eventually picked up by the Japanese navy and spent the rest of the war in prison camps. At the centre is a camp guard who singles him out and works on him systematically for years. The relationship between them is the film's real tension. The raft section is the best of it: thirst, sharks, sun, and time losing its meaning. It is adapted from Laura Hillenbrand's book. The Coen brothers are among the credited writers. Angelina Jolie directed; her second film. Roger Deakins photographed it and was nominated for an Oscar. The most important part of the book is not in the film. After the war Zamperini suffered severe trauma and alcoholism, then underwent a religious conversion and travelled to Japan to forgive the men who had tortured him. The book rests largely on that; the film closes it with a few lines of text. Zamperini died at ninety seven a few months before it was released. It runs 137 minutes. Good for: war drama, true life stories, and survival. Less good for: the torture scenes are long and repetitive, and the story's real conclusion is missing.