My family and I went and saw the film Unbroken today. After seeing the movie, I am dismayed and perplexed by the negative reviews the film has received by many critics, although I have my suspicions on why this has occurred.
I was fortunate in having the opportunity to meet Louis Zamperini several years ago. Growing up in a Navy family, I also had the privilege of meeting several other noted guests of the Japanese empire, including RADM O’Kane and COL Boyington. Unbroken appeared to be as accurate a depiction of what they all described occurring in their POW camp as Hollywood can get.
ABC filmed an outstanding documentary on Louis Zamperini for the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics that can be viewed in a video of an interview with Louis at USC--the ABC clip begins at 9 minutes and 52 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txlt9ij7UJM
The opening scene of the movie Unbroken is outstanding—well filmed and very accurate. The acting is quite good. I liked that most of the major technical details were reasonably correct for a Hollywood film. With a couple of relatively minor exceptions, the film remains accurate to what Louis endured, as previously documented by numerous sources, including contemporaneous accounts and surviving eyewitnesses.
Some folks have complained that the movie failed to adequately portray Louie’s return to the U.S., his severe post-war PTSD, remarkable life changing conversion thanks to Billy Graham, subsequent forgiveness of his captors, and service to others for the remainder of his life. Yes. Those are all key details that would have been great to include in a 3 hour movie. Unfortunately that does not appear to have been possible—especially given the pressure by the studio to trim the length of the film. Perhaps much of the lost footage can be restored in an eventual “Directors Cut” DVD release. Personally, we found the movie was still very powerful as released in theaters. I think it is also very important to realize that Louis got to see a rough cut of the movie before he died and he fully approved of it. In fact, his children state the film is EXACTLY the way he wanted it:
http://townhall.com/columnists/lukez...2559/page/full
https://community.focusonthefamily.c...-unbroken.aspx
http://www.biography.com/news/unbrok...mily-interview
In short, I bid a hearty FUCK YOU to the majority of film critics and a sincere thank you to Ms. Jolie for having the courage to craft a superb cinematic tribute to Louis Zamperini, based on the outstanding biography written by noted author Laura Hillenbrand.
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Originally Posted by DocGKR
