From M. Night Shyamalan, the guy behind the over-rated and over-blown The Sixth Sense, comes a story of a real life hero. No, don't be confused by all the melodramatic crap you've been watching all these years, because I'm not referring to a fireman, or a cop, or a doctor, or even a circus acrobat. When I say "real life hero", I'm talking about all that overly romantic bullshit, I'm talking about a real life comic book hero! I'd like to see an ambulance driver stand up to a hail of bullets or bend a steel bar into a pretzel with his feet! Ha, I don't think so! Screw public service people, if they can't impress me then I don't want their help. At least a clown can juggle or make balloon animals...
Enough of this bullshit, my Jackal ass is falling asleep, so let's get this review underway! Our story opens in a Philadelphia (as in Pennsylvania you cheese eatin' surrender monkey) department store, circa 1961. A young black woman gives birth to her baby boy Elijah and confusion soon runs rampant when a physician on the scene looks the child over and discovers both his arms and legs are broken... nobody touched the kid, so I'm gonna have to guess that that broad's got one kung-fu grip snatch! Maybe Ted Danson was wrong and he just has a real small dick... wait, "maybe"?! Anyway, the size and strength of African-American vaginas aside, we now jump ahead to the present and play voyeur on security guard David Dunn, who's riding the rails on his way home from a failed job interview in New York City. After getting shot down by a babe he had high hopes of banging once or twice, Dave's train goes berserk, jumps the rail and collides with an oncoming train. There are NO survivors, except for Dave, who walks away without a scratch. No, don't worry my friends, this isn't another Sixth Sense. I assure you Dave is in fact alive and, remarkably, well considering everyone else on that train was scattered across the landscape and he didn't even get a fucking tear in his pants! But, even though Dave's physical life doesn't seem to be in any danger, we do discover that his married life is on the rocks, as the love between he and his wife Audrey seems to be slipping... damn it, I assure you this is NOT a Sixth Sense remake/sequel! There is no annoying pug faced kid... though Dave does have a young son... no, wait, I reiterate, this is not The Sixth Sense!
After Dave visits the memorial service for those who died in the train collision, he returns to his car to find a note under his windshield wiper that questions how many days of his life he's ever been sick. When he asks his boss about the subject, it turns out that the goof hasn't taken ONE sick day in the five years he's worked as a security guard for the local college. Though this gets him a whopping $40/week raise, it doesn't shine any new light on that letter he received. For more insight, Dave asks Audrey if she can remember him ever getting ill (it's time to get ill!) in the many years they've been together, to which she replies no... hmmmm, the plot thickens. Now we take a moment to jump back to West Philly, this time 1974. Young Elijah Price is now 13 and has decided that, due to his crippling disease that's made his bone structure as sturdy as peanut brittle he will now become a hermit and live forever in doors and away from contact with dangerously solid objects. His mother, not content with her son locking himself away society as a whole, formulates an ingenious plot to lure the little gimp out into the sunlight. By leaving a comic book on a bench across the street, Elijah has to get up and drag his butt over there if he doesn't want someone to get hid four color fable before he does. Hey, that's the only way my parents got my sorry pale white ass outside! Now we head back to the present, where Elijah has grown out of comics and into... comic art... I'm just kidding of course, though he is now a big time comic art dealer Mr. Price never gave up collecting comics! For all you men and women out there who think comic books are immature and those who collect them are even worse, you don't know what it's like! You think giving up the glossy covers and *POW* balloons is that simple?! It's worse than the 'H' man, the 'C' is much worse... and I'm not talking 'cocaine'... or 'crack'... or 'creamed corn'...
Dave makes the connection between Elijah's pop art gallery and the note he received (which isn't hard considering the place's name was on the letter) and he heads for a meeting with Price, a meeting that will forever change his life... now who's being over dramatic? Dave and Elijah have a quick chat, where Elijah gives Dave his opinion on comic heroes: all myths are based in some ways on fact, with comic books being the same way. Every once in a while there's a person born in this world with superhuman abilities, such as Dave' indestructible physique and immune system. These people and their superhuman feats are slapped down on paper and skewed slightly to make the stories and characters more marketable... money is the ultimate excuse for creative license. So, Elijah believes that Dave is one of these people. In this world everything has it's opposite: God and Satan, Democrats and Republicans, Spam and real food. Elijah believes that since he's the most fragile man in the world, then there has to be an opposite, or an UNBREAKABLE man, hence Dave's condition... what a coincidence these two people happen to live in the same city... Dave, however, can't really believe this shpiel and figures that in some way Elijah's just trying to pull a credit card scheme on him. So, Dave says to Hell with all this crazy talk and leaves. Besides, he was injured when he was younger in a car accident, right? The one that ruined his hopes for a career in pro football and made him a pathetic rent-a-cop? Guess he's not the big superman Price was looking for after all... or is he?
Intent on proving Dave's some genetic freak, Elijah follows him to his job at the sports stadium, where he points out that it's not coincidence Dave took the job as a security guard, he's instinctually in the business of helping out the unfortunate. Speaking of instincts, Dave's also got another power: a psychometric ability that allows him to see the evil actions and illegal intentions of the people he comes in physical contact with. Speaking of which, when he brushes against a guy at the stadium, his mind's eye sees the guy in possession of a handgun. When Elijah follows the guy afterwards, sure enough, Dave's suspicion is right as Elijah witnesses the gun, exactly as described, when the guy jumps the carousel on the subway. Of course when he follows the guy, "Mr. Glass" (a name Elijah was given as a child for obvious reasons) takes a tumble down some stairs and suffers numerous crippling injuries... but he takes it all with a smile, because this is just more evidence of his claim. As for Dave, he decides to do some weight training in his basement with his son Joseph as his athletic supporter... that joke never gets old! Before he realizes what's happening, Dave's benching over 350lbs.! Sure, that may not be Superman stuff, but for a guy's who'd never benched anything near 250 before that, it's pretty friggin' good! And yet, he's still not sure he's a superhero... this is starting to get just a tad annoying, I mean, admit you're a freak already Dave!
After that painful tumble down the stairs, Elijah needs to go for physical therapy sessions, and who should he pick but Dave's wife Audrey, so as to poke a little further into Mr. Dunn's personal life and learn anything else he can about Dave's seemingly super powers. He does learn that Audrey was very disapproving of Dave's former sport of football. Being a whiny little pacifist, Audrey didn't think that the brutality and competition required for football were admirable traits in a future husband. Then, she and Dave were in the car wreck and he was injured, coincidentally opening up the possibility for the two to be joined in holy matrimony... so Dave was never injured, he was just pussy-whipped and threw away his athletic fantasies to get married! What a weak, weak little man. Hope he doesn't mind that I burned all his John Tesh albums!!! When Elijah tells Mrs. Dunn bout his theory, she thinks he's more than a little nuts and that evening at home, things go a little crazy. Like a bad soap opera, young Joseph gets his hands on daddy's gun... firearm you perverts... and threatens to shoot his old man. Joe is a firm believer in Price's theory and is willing to commit armed assault on his father to prove it! Not to worry though, because Joe's mind is as weak as his dad's when he's suckered into giving up the gun after a round of child psychology... damn it, I wanna know if he's bulletproof! Argh!! After this, to appeal to the ladies in the audience, Audrey and David try to revitalize their limp marriage by getting re-associated.
As for the wheelchair bound comic book collector, he's finally discovered Dave's kryptonite: water. Not only is Dave afraid of water, but if he swallows it, he can drown. Physically invulnerable and immune to disease he may be, but he's vulnerable when it comes to his respiratory system! Water! Water is the cheese! After Dave hears this theory too, he finally comes to terms with the fact that he faked his injuries to get closer with his woman. With all this crap taken care of and everything sorted out now, Dave finally decides to strap on his superhero costume and do what he was born to do: good. Let me take minute though to describe his costume. We all know and love the classic superhero fatigues: Batman's insignia, cowl and utility belt; Superman's cape and big 'S'; Spider-Man's arachnid tights and big white eyes; the Incredible Hulk and his torn purple pants; the Armadillo's Armadillo costume... you get the idea. Well, fans of Marvel's "the Avengers" comic, prepare yourself to be astonished at the most original costume since D-Man's homeless guy ensemble: a gray poncho! Yes, donning his gray poncho that just demands respect, Dave sets off to the train station to right some wrongs at the spot where his strange journey all began. After bumping into several people with varying degrees of crimes to their names, Dave settles on a killer janitor... he's no Doctor Doom, but then again, David's no Aquaman... luckily for him. After a near fatal run in with a pool cover, Dave gets his second wind and puts a headlock on the crazed custodian, choking him unconscious then releasing the family he held captive. Then it's off to home to bang his wife and celebrate his first victory as a superhero.
The following morning, after some gratuitous product placement for Tropicana Orange Juice and a "just between you and me" moment with his son over his previous night's victory (which made the front page of the local paper), Dave heads to Elijah's gallery showing to tell him all about his heroics. Elijah is glad to finally hear his theory proven, but the surprise comes when Dave shakes Elijah's hand... and his psychic powers kick in. It turns out that Mr. Glass is responsible for a few terrorist acts which resulted in the deaths of several hundred "innocent" people (including Dave's train wreck), all in the name of finding the one person who could survive these inescapable horrors: Dave. Mortified by the whole ordeal, Dave informs the cops, who find Mr. Glass and evidence of all his misdoings. Elijah is then locked away in a sanitarium and Dave's got his first arch-nemesis... this could be that start of something VERY interesting! Ah, true pulp irony for ya there folks, excellently executed by Senor Shyamalan!
Night uses his visual talents and twist ending abilities that he piled on us in The Sixth Sense and uses them to portray comicbook heroes in a whole new light, a very dim and disturbing light. The dirty and realistic feel of the movie was great and I thank Mr. Shyamalan for having the foresight to give us a mature and thought provoking comic book film, giving them a more distinguished taste long thought impossible since that bastard Schumacher destroyed the Batman franchise with rubber nipples and neon lights. The soundtrack, cinematography, acting, all the pegs fit into the holes like they were supposed to! This was like the creators of black licorice going on to retribution by inventing something that combines sex and ice cream! Hmmmmm, speaking of which, I'm in the mood to slather some Ben & Jerry's on Krissy, so I leave you now. All I can hope is that Night will go one to create at least one sequel to Unbreakable, because unlike Captain America, it definitely deserves one!
The Moral of the Story: Everything happens for a reason. I'm not saying I believe in fate or a higher power, just crippled terrorist guys with crazy plots and schemes.
DVD X-tras: For some odd reason the release company decided on a double disc release for this film, when they could've easily heaped all the extra material onto one disc with the film itself. The first disc contains only the movie, while the second disc contains the following: a featurette called "Comic books and Superheroes" which is just as it sounds, a documentary on comic books and superheroes featuring opinions by some of the comic industry's most respected names. There's also a second featurette on the "Behind the Scenes" of Unbreakable; a "from storyboard to finished product" extra for the train station scene; deleted scenes with introductions by Shyamalan, including a more impressive weight lifting scene and a scene with Bruce Willis smacking pudd in the shower... uggh! Unclean! UNCLEAN! Oh, and finally, there's a humorous fight scene excerpt from one of Night's old home videos, featuring Night battling it out with two of his friends to the tune of some ragtime music... HAHAHAH! Okay, it wasn’t that funny…
H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. Rating: 
- It's a good movie for a one-on-one, but it's a little too slick and stylized for H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. tastes.
If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: Spider-Man or
Batman Begins
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