Unbreakable is the Birth of a Nation of our day. Not in terms of greatness or innovation; it simply embraces noxious attitudes that many people hold without question or shame. Like Birth, it is most dangerous in precisely the moments some people find "entertaining" -- when its childish story lulls their consciousness, or appeals to unexamined, seemingly unbreakable, social prejudices.
M. Night Shyamalan's newest film isn't anywhere near the work of art D.W. Griffith made at the beginning of cinematic feature history; but Shyamalan also uses dramatic manipulation -- and so primitively some viewers cannot resist him. They're suckers for Shyamalan’s logy, leading-by-the-hand technique -- snail-pacing with overemphatic compositions. But something more basic -- subliminal -- lures people to Unbreakable. It is the specter of racist fear that the story justifies even as it launches a dismaying, unlikely plot. Griffith's audience kept the secret of lynching; Shyamalan's politically correct audience holds on to its secreted suspiciousness -- and blamelessness. Unbreakable keeps an unholy faith.
White is completely and utterly wrong, in this filmgoer's opinion, but it sure is fun watching a guy get all worked up like this.
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