Let’s be honest, when you hear about “Sea biscuit”, you don’t tend to get all jazzed up, demanding to be taken to the nearest movie theater on the premiere date.

Lauren Hillenbrand truly redeemed herself with “Unbroken,” her second book she published a whopping nine years after her first.

I can honestly say both books never caught my attention until a EHS American Literature teacher brought it up one day in class, ranting about the elaborate descriptions and heart-wrenching emotion “Unbroken” pieced together.

Daily, she’d lecture to us about another chapter she couldn’t put down before passing out the night before, urging us to run out to theaters Christmas day and watch the movie for ourselves.

Her enthusiasm convinced me.

Dec. 29, as of a last minute decision, I barreled into the movie theater with a friend, my sister, a bag full of popcorn in one hand and an enormous coke in the other to settle down for the show.

For the first half hour of the movie, I wasn’t impressed by Angelina Jolie’s director’s cut. Scenes were sloppily hasted together, Louis Zamperini’s childhood was chopped into minimal bites and it was hard to swallow.

I asked myself, “How does his family influence his life?” and “Why is this important?” I constantly felt as if I was missing out on a large portion of Zamperini’s upbringing.

In addition, once Zamperini and his airmen are catapulted through the air on to water rafts, mid-ocean, for 47 days, the film didn’t capture the tension or stress this would bring among the men.

Many scenes were trimmed up, which left boring days and nights on the lifeboat for the three, then eventually two men. Personally, I could’ve slept through the entire first half of the movie and found the film to be more entertaining after my nap.

However, following their capture by the Japanese, the plot picks up and your eyes glue to the screen.

As Zamperini’s mate, “Phil” Russell Allen, played by Domhnall Gleeson, is beaten senselessly a couple yards away, my heart wrenches and sinks to the pit of my stomach.

All time stops as you’re witnessing Zamperini fall to his knees, execution style, before the Japanese, fearing for his life.

Through years of harsh punishment and torture by Japanese soldiers, Zamperini continues to keep your heart faintly beating, as you hope for the war to end. And it does.

Angelina Jolie chose the perfect crew of actors, such as Jack O’Connell and Miyavi, for the main characters of the film, and personally without them, this movie would have sank like the titanic: unlike this movie, without lifeboats.

I recommend catching “Unbroken” either in theaters soon or after their DVD release March 2015.

“Sea Biscuit” might not have you hooked on the line, but “Unbroken” certainly is a sinker.