Unbroken

How do you film the great story of a man who lived "unbroken" - from one thousand nine hundred seventeen until his death in two thousand fourteen - ninety - seven years of robust living coupled with endurance? The film I viewed tried to do this well - - hoping to give us Louie Zamperini's unquenchable spirit to live. We first see Louie in Torrance, California - hell-bent on kid-mischief - stealing... smoking and drinking booze... outfoxing the police... The thing that's clear is how fast he runs when he's trying to save his skin from capture. As a young boy he's ably played by J.C. Valleroy. Louie's older brother, Pete, played in his younger years by John D'Leo, turns his brother's energy towards distance running. Soon Louie has become the fastest youth in all of the U.S. By the time he's nineteen years old he's qualified for the Thirty-Six Olympics - where he's summoned to meet Hitler... That last part of his mile run established a time that made Louie famous world - wide.

By now the Second World War was coming of age; and Louie signed up and became a bombardier. Here is the start of the essential part of the film that shows his unbroken strength of character. By this time the role of Louie Zamperini has passed to Jack O'Donnell; and truth to tell he does a great job recreating Louie on screen. The challenges that the real Louie faced from the time when his plane crashed far out in The Pacific - being stranded with two for forty-seven days - living off shark and random bird - being baked by the sun and strafed by a Jap plane - being tossed doll - like on the sea - then captured and tortured in Japanese prisons - then wantonly freed at War's end - - and abruptly shipped home in nineteen forty - five. (Twenty - eight years old was his age.) For someone who has read the book - UNBROKEN - there is yet the added lifetime wherein Louie begins to conquer or quell the demons that the War created. The falseness of the title, UNBROKEN, is that really the World War broke him; and it was only when he got home, married, had a family, beat alcohol, and got rid of the dreams of the maniacal "Bird" menace - by spiritually forgiving him through his reborn Christian faith - that you could say he's "unbroken".