M. Night Week: Unbreakable goes underrated while David Dunn fights

After turning heads with his debut, The Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan makes a bold career move with the heroic Unbreakable and breaks the movie mold.

Breaking Through

After The Sixth Sense, everything changes. Still in his late 20s, suddenly M. Night Shyamalan is thrust into the Hollywood elite. With offers coming fast, the Philly filmmaker takes a turn only real artist do — into themselves. His next film will again a tale from within and this time, he’s breaking the mold to get there.

— Courtesy of Buera Vista

Hero At The Helm

Riding on his instincts, Unbreakable is M. Night at his very best. While not his most accomplished work (I have two problems with the flick), it’s most powerful asset is its filmmaker. In what can only be described as bold, Shyamalan making something so different when everyone was placating him to play it safe is remarkable. In fact, artistic and financial success aside, its creator is the movie’s biggest superpower. That isn’t to say M. Night’s protagonist isn’t heroic himself…

David Gets It Dunn

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Unbreakable tells the story of David Dunn (Bruce Willis), a former football prospect turned family man/security guard. After being the sole survivor of a horrific train crash, Dunn’s visited by Elijah (Samuel L. Jackson), who believes David may be a living character from a comicbook. He think’s David is strong, that he’s special. He thinks David is unbreakable.

In the thick of what makes the film work is its characters. M. Night skips the pleasantries by offering heroes and villains as flawed as we are. They are truly imperfect beings in an imperfect world, even if they are better than most of us.

Mold Breaker

Hitting theaters Nov. 22, 2000, Unbreakable is unlike any film before or since. Arriving years before superheroes owned the silver screen, it’s an experience that went underrated almost 19 years (Glass is changing that). Make no mistake, M. Night’s second feature is the definition of ahead of its time — but at the time critics and audiences were left confused by its genre bending nature.

Taking in just $95 million domestically on a budget of $75 million, the film wasn’t a hit but is a blow to Shyamalan. Then again, art isn’t measured by money it makes but its lasting impact and Unbreakable is still breaking mold to this day.

Fan of M. Night Shyamalan? Think Unbreakable is massively underrated? Let the other superheros and vicious villains know what you think in the comment section below.