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UNBROKEN: PATH TO REDEMPTION
Director: Harold Cronk Cast: Samuel Hunt, Merritt Patterson, Bobby Campo, Gary Cole, Bob Gunton, David DeLuise, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Will Graham, Andrew Caldwell, David Sakurai MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:38 Release Date: 9/14/18 |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 13, 2018 Unbroken: Path to Redemption continues the story of Louis Zamperini, the Olympic runner who became a Japanese prisoner of war during World War II, as dramatized in Unbroken. This isn't an official sequel, though. The entire cast has changed. The filmmaking team is completely different. The two things that connect this movie to the previous one are Zamperini's story and, more specifically, Laura Hillenbrand's biography, on which both movies are based (A third is the studio distributing both movies, if such things are important to you). Even with the major changes, there's some promise to the idea of this movie. It resumes a tale that seemed to be cut unfortunately short in the 2014 movie, which told the story of Zamperini's life until he was released from Japanese captivity at the end of the war. Before being held in captivity, Zamperini had survived for 47 days on a life raft in the Pacific Ocean with a crewmate from a plane that crashed (A third survivor of the crash died while stranded). It was a story of unlikely survival, compounded by the regular torture that Zamperini experienced in the POW camps. What stuck out in the previous movie—besides it feeling like a series of depressing and, eventually, tedious events that mostly ignored the man at the center of them—was its coda. The ending text hinted that Zamperini, not only had a lot of life left in him, but also had a pretty fascinating transformation after his time in the war. The most notable part was learning that he traveled to Tokyo in 1950 and forgave a group of imprisoned war criminals—some of whom may have been at one of the multiple camps where Zamperini was held. Richard Friedenberg and Ken Hixon's screenplay sets out to tell that part of the story, opening with Zamperini's trip to Sugamo Prison and ending there with his seemingly unexpected act (The movie expects that we've seen the previous one, since it incorporates a lot of what happened into its own story, but strangely, the screenplay also treats the character's forgiveness as a bit of a twist, even though, if we had seen the first movie, we would already know that it's going to happen). In between, the movie offers its own series of disheartening and, eventually, repetitive events in Zamperini's life—just on a smaller scale than the previous movie. To be fair, the movie does have a better grip on Zamperini as a man who is more than what happens to him. That is, partially, a consequence of this particular story, in which Louis (played this time by Samuel Hunt) physically has returned home but mentally has found himself trapped in the years of fear, despair, and torment that he suffered during the war. It's a more difficult story to tell, if only because it doesn't have the spectacle of combat, the tension of being lost at sea, or the visceral impact of torture in a POW camp. There's something admirable about Friedenberg, Hixon, and director Harold Cronk trying to tell the tale of this section of Zamperini's life, which is more about personal demons than difficult circumstances. It's also a shame, though, that the filmmakers aren't quite up to that task and, gradually, allow another agenda to become the story's focus. After a montage of news clippings that recap Louis' experiences before and in the war, he returns home to Torrance, California, and receives a hero's welcome. Soon, he's enlisted to participate in a cross-country tour to help sell war bonds. Ever since returning home, though, Louis has been drinking heavily to the point that it interferes with his work. He's ordered to some rest and relaxation on Miami Beach, where he meets Cynthia (Merritt Patterson), a beautiful woman who takes as much of a liking to him as he does to her. They elope and move back to Torrance, where Louis struggles to find steady employment, fails in his attempts to make a triumphant return to running at the 1948 Olympics, and keeps drinking to try to keep the sleeping and waking nightmares of his wartime experiences at bay. It's a fairly one-note examination of posttraumatic stress disorder, which wasn't a term at the time. Hunt's performance is fine, taking Louis through the ups and downs of optimism for the potential of his life being repeatedly smashed by the world. Patterson is also good as a wife who is supportive but does eventually have enough of her husband's despair, even if it's only temporary. As for the story, it's all building toward the eventual collision between Louis, a lapsed Catholic, and the revival tour of evangelical Christian Billy Graham (played by Will Graham, the famous preacher's grandson). Yes, this ultimately is one of those overtly Christian movies, made to assure believers and to attempt to convert the masses. Admittedly, up until Graham's arrival in the story, Unbroken: Path to Redemption is a sincere, if far too heavy-handed and melodramatic and shaky, study of a man who feels so betrayed by the world that he betrays his own chances to survive in it. Copyright © 2018 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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