Movie Review: Unbreakable

Unbreakable (2000) 

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Written by M. Night Shyamalan 

Starring Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Robin Wright

Release Date November 22nd, 2000

Published November 20th, 2020 

Unbreakable was M Night Shyamalan’s last moment as a seemingly unimpeachable genius of pop cinema. After this came Signs which received strong box office but the first real critical grumbles since his little seen debut feature, Wide Awake. Don’t misunderstand, Unbreakable had its critics, but with Shyamalan still in the glow of his multiple Academy Award nominations for The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable was always going to benefit from that film's coattails. 

That Unbreakable wasn’t Shyamalan falling on his face but instead delivering a second straight crowd-pleasing blockbuster is no minor feat. Many directors have shown themselves to be one and done it-person directors in the past. To have back to back blockbuster critical darlings is far more rare than we imagine.

Unbreakable stars Bruce Willis as David, a seemingly ordinary guy with ordinary guy troubles. David’s marriage is failing, his relationship with his son is strained and his search for stable, well paying work has been hampered by his seeming depression. Then, David is seemingly nearly killed in a massive train accident. In fact, by some miracle, he’s the only survivor among more than 100 passengers and crew members.

David’s luck doesn’t go unnoticed. A comic book aficionado by the name of Elijah Price hears of David’s improbable survival and begins to seek him out. For years, Elijah has searched for someone like David on the bizarre belief that the man he is seeking is his direct opposite and thus his super-powered nemeses. Elijah himself, is nearly paralyzed by a brittle bone condition that causes his bones to shatter under pressure.

Elijah believes that David’s bones are unbreakable, making him his super-heroic doppelganger. Where David is unbreakable, Elijah is completely breakable and thus fashions himself as a mastermind type who uses his wits to orchestrate evil that David must work to prevent or avenge. David doesn’t buy Elijah’s superhero nonsense but as he begins to notice things about his body, how he’s never broken a bone, how he doesn’t experience physical fatigue, how he doesn’t get sick, he starts to think that maybe, just maybe the crazy comic book man might be onto something.

One of the clever aspects of Unbreakable is Bruce Willis’s refusal to buy into David as a superhero. Despite evidence in his very bones, Willis' David stubbornly holds on to his non-believer status. Even as Elijah begins to push him to test his limits and find his weaknesses. David eventually determines that he has ESP, Extra-Sensory Perception. When David touches someone he can sense the crime they committed.

David uses this ability to locate a janitor who had ambushed and murdered a local family man and has taken the man’s wife and children hostage. David rescues the kids and winds up in a pitched battle with the murderer. The journey of the film appears to be Elijah pushing David to become a superhero but, with this being from the mind of M Night Shyamalan, there is a twist to the ending that throws a new light on these characters.

What Shyamalan does so incredibly in Unbreakable is establish mood and tone. The mood is melancholy but with a growing sense of color and light as David slowly uncovers his abilities. The tone of the film is a slow burn of sadness and resignation to ordinary life that builds and builds with excitement through the second act before reaching a pair of jarring crescendos including that terrific twist ending that I mentioned.

Of course, if you are seeing Glass this weekend and you have seen the trailer, you know what the twist is. Still, no need for me to spoil it here. Just a warning though, you do need to see Unbreakable in order for you to understand the action of Glass and the importance of Samuel L Jackson’s character to Bruce Willis’ character. How they are tied in with James McAvoy’s murderous, multiple personalities from Split is the big question that Glass will have to answer.  

As for Unbreakable on its own, I cannot recommend it enough. In some ways, I actually prefer Unbreakable to The Sixth Sense. That’s not a popular position as The Sixth Sense, in many ways, has more dramatic credibility than the comic book quality of Unbreakable. I simply find the conceit of Unbreakable even more irresistibly mainstream and entertaining than even the ‘I see dead people’ conceit of The Sixth Sense.

Both are artfully made, mainstream blockbusters, based in familiar genres, but there is something rather bold and unique in Unbreakable where Shyamalan forces you to treat comic books as a form of serious film art. That takes guts today, let alone in the year 2000, before Marvel made comic book movies that critics could embrace.