This year, the true story of Louie Zamperini made it to the big screens in a film called Unbroken, which was directed by famous Hollywood actress, Angelina Jolie.
Louie Zamperini was a respected Olympic track runner known as the “Torrance Tornado.” After his running career, Zamperini went into the military as a bombardier ( a member of a bomber crew in the US Air Force responsible for sighting and releasing bombs), and after a failure in one of the military’s plane, Zamperini and two others were stranded in a raft in the middle of the ocean in Japan for 47 days, until Japanese officers came and took Louie captive in a Japanese prison camp. This past July, Louis Zamperini passed away at the age of 97 years old. On Boxing day, 2014, Unbroken was released into all theaters in America, spreading Louis Zamperini’s legacy to audiences everywhere.
Louie Zamperini is remembered in the film, Unbroken.
Unbroken was originally a book called Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, written by Laura Hillenbrand. The movie was directed by Angelina Jolie, and it turns out that Zamperini and Jolie were neighbors all along. Based off of Today’s interview with the film, Jolie said that the film had became very personal to her. She also added, “(I feel) such a huge responsibility to get it right, because I love (Zamperini) so much, and because he’s helped me so much in my life.”
Unbroken is Jolie’s third movie she has ever directed, and the movie brought $115,637,895 to the box office, according to Box Office Mojo.
The movie opens up to Zamperini and his crew in their plane during World War II, heading towards an area in Japan, all while they are defending themselves from enemy Japanese planes shooting at them. The remainder of the plot continues to unravel in present day World War II in Zamperini’s point of view, but while he is in present day, he has several flashbacks that the audience sees before Zamperini was in the military.
Overall, Unbroken was a great depiction of what being a prisoner of war in a Japanese prison camp is like. It also provided deep detail of how you have to have hope, and be “unbroken” in order to survive even in the most desperate situations.
Even though it was a pretty good movie with 71% of audiences enjoying the movie, and giving it a 3.8/5 stars from Rotten Tomatoes, there was some parts in the movie that were very brief. Unbroken would have most likely been more successful if there was more detail on Zamperini’s childhood, where he was known as a troublemaker. There was also only one scene about Zamperini being in the Olympics. All of these events from Zamperini’s past is what made him strong in the first place, and the scenes portraying it on the big screen were very vague.
In the end, Unbroken was a great motion picture that represented what it is like to have fought in World War II, or any war in general. Despite failing to capture important moments in Zamperini’s life, it is still a great PG-13 movie to watch anytime.
