Unthinkable stars Samuel L. Jackson, Carrie Anne Moss and Michael Sheen as they battle wills to discover where a self-proclaimed terrorist hid bombs in several cities throughout the US. The film is a taut thriller with a thin veneer of respectability that asks its audience about the ethics of torture without questioning the efficacy. Americans love films that appear to be intellectually stimulating and are simultaneously primally satisfying. We get to say something is wrong and see a disaster without experiencing it while vicariously doing the wrong thing through the characters on the screen, specifically the terrorist and the torturer, without suffering the consequences. Why do you think TV shows like The Walking Dead are so popular? We want to have our cake and eat it too.
Unthinkable peddles in various stereotypes. The film feeds into the prevailing Islamophobia that plagues our political and cultural discourse. It also promulgates gender norms that suggest that women are more likely to be the voice of reason in similar situations over their male counterparts, but recent history, including the psychological torture at Abu Ghraib and 53% of white women in a certain national election, would suggest otherwise.
I am actually angrier contemplating all the lesser quality films starring Jackson and literally any male actor that gets released in theaters whereas Unthinkable went straight to video. If Unthinkable replaced Moss with Mark Wahlberg, they would release it on 9/11 and market it as our patriotic duty to watch it. I don’t believe that controversy is what stopped it from playing in theaters. With TV shows like 24 and Homeland, I can’t believe that theaters were concerned about the morality of the film’s premise, but the marketability of the female lead.
Unthinkable is actually a really solid movie. It is so good that my mom was in the next room secretly and breathlessly wondering what was going to happen next, and neither of us are not into this genre. It has a powerhouse cast, including the notable character actor Stephen Root, perfect pacing and a riveting story that unfolds in a conventional way, but also holds enough surprises that it feels fresh and familiar, a tricky tightrope for any Hollywood film to traverse. There were so many TV actors that probably thought they were going to get a bounce in popularity for being in this movie: Brandon Routh, Gil Bellows, Sasha Roiz and Yara Shahidi. Sorry, guys.
There were some interesting subplots, particularly involving Jackson’s character’s wife before she married him. I wanted to know more about her, but it did make sense that considering what was happening, our curiosity would not be fully satisfied. Other movies should take note: THIS is how you don’t spoon feed an audience without losing your viewers’ trust that you know what is going on. I was always confident that the creative team behind Unthinkable had a grasp of all the moving pieces on the board, which most thrillers fail at doing and confuse constant shifts and revelations as great storytelling, which it is not.
Unthinkable is a reactionary fairy tale validated by seeming to engage in an ethical debate while leaving the most important question out of the story altogether: does torture actually work in getting actionable intelligence? Movies and TV shows generally take it for granted that it does so we can sit back and enjoy the torture. Unthinkable is no different, but what it does well is making a focused, entertaining and well-paced movie featuring stunning performances worthy of the big screen. If you enjoy thrillers, you should definitely check it out.