Unbreakable: Spoiler alert!

I try not to talk about the endings of movies that people might see but I figure that since Unbreakable came out seven years ago it's probably safe. But, before I get to that, I'd like to say that I disagree with, what appears to be, the common consensus on M. Night Shyamalan. Namely that The Sixth Sense is awesome, Unbreakable was a let-down, Signs sucked, The Village was awful and Lady in the Water warranted a lynching. I think he's mainly been criticized for repeating himself but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. There's not a lot of variety in Hitchcock's oeuvre but he's still one of the greatest directors ever. I think there's a lot to say about a craftsman who find his niche and produces elegant variations on a theme. Shyamalan has consistently made films that are thrilling, funny and just generally entertaining. Yeah, he can go a little overboard and take his audience in bizarre directions but I admire a guy with that much audacity and imagination.

Anyway, on to the film and, more specifically, the ending. I like how Shyamalan basically gives away the ending right before it happens. It softens the blow and doesn't make it seem like he's trying to pull a fast one on you. I mean, when Bruce Willis is told that there are two kinds of villains, the lesser ones that fight with their hands and the real villain who fights with his mind, we know that we know that Willis has yet to face the mastermind. Also, we know that the film is almost over so there isn't enough time to introduce a new character. That narrows the search down to pretty much Willis' wife, son and the slightly deranged character played by Samuel L. Jackson. The choice is clear, especially if we recall Jackson's line "However unreal it may seem, we are connected, you and I. We're on the same curve, just on opposite ends."

However, I didn't really buy Jackson's motivation. His whole reason for being evil was an existential crisis. I mean, if he was trying to locate Willis so that he could lock him up in his lab and perform experiments on him until he could figure out how to steal Willis' unbreakability, reducing his own breakableness, that would make sense. But believing that "the scariest thing is . . . (t)o not know your place in this world, to not know why you're here" to the point of killing lots of innocent people? That's kinda silly.


I can't believe that Samuel L. Jackson was really Bruce Willis' father . . . and a sled! Oh Manoj, you've done it to us again.