Word: jacksonism
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...trailers for Unbreakable show Bruce Willis as David Dunn, the only survivor of a disastrous train wreck, and Samuel L. Jackson as Elijah Price, who seeks Dunn out to offer an explanation for his good fortune. No mention is made of comic books or their applications to real life, which appears to be Shyamalan's thesis and purpose for making this movie, and a metaphor debated frequently throughout the film. The twist ending of this film, a trick that Shyamalan became famous for in The Sixth Sense both supports and distorts the metaphor, and leaves the viewer unsure about whether...
Shyamalan wrote Unbreakable, the story of a man who survives a horrific train wreck and the stranger he encounters afterward, with two actors in mind: Willis (as the survivor) and Jackson (as the stranger). He was drawn to Willis for his Everyman quality and to Jackson for his incantatory elocution. Jackson returns the compliment. "[Shyamalan] knows how to use language," says the actor. "He gives characters an opportunity to express themselves. They tell you how they feel about certain things, how they feel about certain people, how they feel about themselves. But he also doesn't do it in such...
...other contemporary vocal groups haven't done better: Jodeci had more personality, Blackstreet had better material, Boyz II Men are better singers. And, going back a bit, Backstreet has never recorded a song as soulful as the Doobie Brothers' What a Fool Believes or as instantly adorable as the Jackson 5's I Want You Back. Sure, Backstreet is fabulously popular. But so were Wilson Phillips, New Kids on the Block and the Spice Girls...
...other hand, when that train is wrecked, he is the only survivor--not a scratch on him. This interests Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), who is Dunn's obvious opposite--an elegant, well-spoken dude who runs an upscale store dealing in original comic-book art. He is also afflicted by a congenital illness that causes his bones to shatter on the slightest contact--reason enough, one imagines, to account for his cranky manner...
...film is very well played. Willis is good as a depressed man resisting instinctive, inchoate hints that he is not living up to his uncanny potential. And Jackson's ability to play perverse intelligence gets its best outing since Pulp Fiction. Robin Wright Penn is superb as the wife almost defeated by Dunn's inarticulate withdrawals, and young Spencer Treat Clark's hopeful patience with his troubled dad is fine...