Unbreakable

Saw Unbreakable, an M. Night Shyamalan film which I intended to see on a Friday afternoon but, in an unforeseeable twist, I was too busy on Friday and saw it Saturday instead.  This was the film he made right after the smash success of The Sixth Sense and is a fairly alright film.  It follows a security guard who somehow survives a terrible train crash.  He's then contacted by a flamboyant Samuel L. Jackson who keeps pushing the crazy theory that he's a superhero.

The concept is interesting in that it's almost a paranoid delusion come to life.  The story is fun and interesting and sporadically beloved on the internet.  It's also spawned a few sequels.  It's not a bad film, but it has one big weakness: everything is done as seriously as possible.

For the most part this uber-self-seriousness serves the film well.  The security guard gazes at the crowds like a gorilla, contemplating his own maybe super powers.  For other scenes though, it's ridiculous.  There's a scene where he's sitting down to breakfast with his son.  He wants to show the son something in the paper, so we get this shot of the son eating, drinking a glass of orange juice.  From the corner of the screen, the paper enters the shot, as though gently tapped forward by the scowling security guard.  This is hilariously absurd.

So the film is okay.  It's a little too self-serious for me, but it's some nice work and a good start to a little series, the final mandatory twist providing the cliffhanger setup for the next film.  It's early Shyamalan, long before he went off the deep end, and still worth a look.