"Unbroken," an American war drama film produced and directed by Angelina Jolie, has received an impressive 4 stars from Faith Based Consumer, a strong indication that the film will resonate with Christian viewers.
The organization, which uses five specific criteria to measure the compatibility of entertainment products for Christian audiences, said the film, which is based on the life of Olympian and war hero Louis Zamperini, is a "great choice" for families to watch together.
"Unbroken is an inspiring faith-friendly film that will solidly resonate with Faith Driven Consumer audiences," Chris Stone, Founder of Faith Driven Consumer and Certified Brand Strategist, said in a statement.
"This movie positively presents core biblical concepts such as hard work, overcoming adversity, forgiveness, love, Christ-like self-sacrifice, and God's sovereign hand in our lives. As people of faith evaluate which films to see over Christmas, "Unbroken" is a great choice."
The highly-anticipated movie is based on the original novel by Laura Hillenbrand and focuses on the life of former Olympic track star Louis Zamperini, who survived a plane crash during World War II. After spending 47 days on adrift on a raft, he was captured by the Japanese and forced to spend years as a prisoner of war in internment camps.
The main climax of the story happens when Zamperini embraces Christianity at a Billy Graham crusade in 1949, not long after being released. Before his death in June of 2014, Zamperini found great success as an inspirational speaker--and returned to Japan to see the prison guards who had tried to kill him.
"The most important thing in my Christian life was to know that I not only forgave them, verbally, but to see them face-to-face and tell them that I forgave them," Zamperini explained at the time.
Faith Based Consumer has also praised the film's writing and directorial crew, including Hollywood hard-hitters Angelina Jolie and the Coen brothers (No Country For Old Men, Fargo) for positively depicting Zamperini's strong faith throughout the film.
"Jolie and the screenwriters do not minimize the faith angle to his life-clearly weaving into the story the foundation for what will later become Zamperini's mighty testimony of service to God as a committed Christian," writes Stone.
"Under Jolie's sensitive, focused and nuanced direction, God's sovereign hand is clearly upon Zamperini and biblical themes of hard work, perseverance, overcoming adversity, familial love, forgiveness, reconciliation and Christ-like self-sacrifice are unmistakably present throughout "Unbroken."
The film, which is rated PG-13, hits theatres December 25.
