FORGOTTEN FILMS THAT SHOULD BE REMEMBERED ...I’VE FORGOTTEN THE NUMBER BUT ENOUGH TO NOT BE OCCASIONAL ANY MORE!

After reading about the film this piece of amazing Pencils by the legendary Jack Kirby seemed like a great place to start for this one.

So after the whole Jeff Bridges train of thought I was inclined to perform the same exercise again recently with Bruce Willis after seeking the immensely enjoyable “LOOPER” and it was this train of thought that got my train of thought to this station which is one of Bruce’s less well remembered films.  I was going through the list that included “DIE HARD”, “PULP FICTION”, “12 MONKEYS” (Gilliam’s master-piece) and “THE SIXTH SENSE” but I then forgot about this underrated and understated drama of a man who is not what he seems featuring Willis’ second on-screen pairing with Samuel L Jackson (Ignoring LOADED WEAPON 1 and PULP FICTION as they share virtually no screen time).  This film has split fans and critics alike but to my mind it is one of Willis’ best film.  Its almost mundane pace masks the incredibleness of the premise and the films homage to its artistic origins is present throughout the film but only visible to those who know the genre.  Ladies and gentlemen I present the case for...

UNBREAKABLE (2000)

Willis plays David Dunn, a security guard going through the death throes of a loveless marriage, whose taking a train journey to an interview he will never make.  The train crashes killing everyone on board except for the unremarkable Mister Dunn himself leaving him (and us) with many questions but darn few answers until he meets the comic-book afficionado, Elijah Price, a man who believes that David Dunn may be the man he has searched for his entire life after undertaking the bizarre undertaking to find a man who is his exact and equal opposite.

To the unknowing ye this to many people is the inferior follow-up to the nerve-jangling “THE SIXTH SENSE”, but to my mind this is by far its superior.  The film has a number of wonderful nods to the world of comic-book art that aren’t even noticeable on first viewing, for one, the use of black as a colour with an unusual amount of shots showing characters in silhouette.  The villains before the films showcase ending all stand out from the backgrounds in primary colours while everything else fades to grey.  The stationary camera while characters approach turning it into a long drawn out close-up is employed to great use with this being a technique taken from film into comic-book and then back to film again (great example of the technique from Frank Miller’s Daredevil masterpiece “BORN AGAIN”) 

And in its final nod to the genre in “UNBREAKABLE” the main character’s name is an illiteration (“Reed Richards” “Peter Parker” “Bruce Banner”).  The film itself always manages to have a constant sense of menace in spite of the stillness, something that the best comic-book artists have been doing for the last fifty years.

The performances are all grounded in reality to make the decidedly fantastical premise feel anything but that.  The music from the composer of “THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION” is a real treat also adding to a sense of menace and foreboding and the direction throughout has a feeling of seeing the truth as if peering round curtains, seeing only part of the picture until the eventual big reveal.

Divisive and ...Not controversial but unusual this is probably Bruce Willis’ most under-rated film that puts us truly in the shoes of extraordinary and asks the question ...In the same circumstances what would you do?

Understated excellence.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_f1uCWKZQs