M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable (2000) begins auspiciously but eventually self-destructs.
It raises the question of whether a middle-aged security guard (Bruce Willis) possesses comic-book hero superpowers. A physically fragile, slightly annoying black man (Samuel L. Jackson) believes he does. Who this black man turns out to be—well, in truth I can’t make head or tail of who he turns out to be—constitutes one of the movie’s bothersome flaws. Shyamalan is fond of bizarre twists but he fumbles them, as witness his The Sixth Sense. The final beyond-the-grave stuff in that picture doesn’t come off, and neither does the Unbreakable wrap-up. Inspired camera use arises in our man’s thrillers, but this is certainly no Hitchcock fare.
Cover of Unbreakable (Two-Disc Vista Series)
