Slow And Moody, But Satisfying

Sun Herald

Sunday December 3, 2000

ROB LOWING

UNBREAKABLE

Rating: M

Starring: Bruce Willis, Samuel L Jackson, Robin Wright Penn/

Critic's warning: Adult themes, violence.

Critic's rating: 7 out of 10.

ALTHOUGH it's an odd mixture of moral fable and creepy murder thrills, Unbreakable is still mostly satisfying adult entertainment.

That's mostly. This story about a man seemingly invincible to injury is by M Night Shyamalan, the writer-director of the stunning The Sixth Sense.

But while Unbreakable has all of that movie's atmosphere and brilliant camerawork, this is an even more interior drama. It's the complete opposite of flashy suspense thrillers like the currently showing What Lies Beneath. Sometimes this story plays more on feelings it's in love with sustaining and exploring a mood than on plot.

Unbreakable's slow pace made some members of one cinema audience frankly restive; the ending, while genuinely surprising, was also so abrupt that it seemed to undermine the seriousness of the intent.

Depressed security guard David Dunne (Willis) thinks he has little to be thankful for, with a failing marriage and a sense of sadness which never leaves him.

But David must be lucky after all: he's the only survivor of a horrific train crash.

For Elijah Price (Jackson), the obsessive comic book dealer who suffers from tragically fragile bones, David is more than just lucky.

Elijah is convinced he and David are bound together on a weird curve of fate. To Elijah, David's strength is that of a comic book superhero who can save those around him. And that conviction will drastically change the lives of David and his family.

There's a lot going on, in a quietly dramatic way, in Unbreakable. The performances are just terrific, from Sixth Sense star Willis, who strips right down emotionally, impeccable Penn Wright and Jackson and talented Spencer Treat Clark as David's son.

And it's so exquisitely directed that cinema buffs will frequently be lost in admiration for director Shyamalan's choices: shooting the opening scene through a narrow gap adds its own tension; shooting another lengthy scene over a bandaged, trembling torso means that, as time goes on, blood begins to blot the bandages.

The film doesn't flow smoothly; it does feel cluttered and there's a confusing time jump backwards.

Like Sixth Sense, although in a clumsier way, the end of Unbreakable means that you have to re-think the whole movie. For some, impatient with all the frills, the effort won't be worth it. But for others, the genuine moments of knuckle-biting tension played out in a real-feeling world make this trip worthwhile.