Bruce Willis already wasn't usable in Glass

Spoilers for Split and Glass.

I watched the first two movies of my informal M. Night Shyamalan weekend, The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, to examine Shyamalan's filmmaking choices in two of his most highly regarded films.

I ended up thinking about a different one of his choices in my Sunday night film, Glass -- the choice to use Bruce Willis. And yes, my own choice of the word "use" has two meanings there. 

Glass was the only post-Sixth Sense Shyamalan movie I hadn't seen, and by seeing it now instead of 2019, I have an entirely different perspective on it than its initial viewers would have had.

It was less than a year ago that we learned that Willis has aphasia, a language disorder that affects people's ability to speak, read, listen and write -- which also provided a sad explanation for the Willis we were getting in a dozen cheap-o genre movies a year. This news was immediately followed by concerns that an obviously compromised Willis had been exploited by filmmakers eager to cash in on his name, though I think it's more complicated than that as it was revealed that Willis himself also wanted to keep earning money while he still could, to provide for those who depended on him.

Was M. Night Shyamalan one of those filmmakers?

Given Willis' usage in Glass, you'd have to think so.

I wasn't counting, but I don't think Willis' David Dunn has more than ten lines of dialogue in the whole movie. Given that his was the character who launched the whole eventual surprise trilogy that started with Unbreakable and includes Split as a middle film, you'd really expect him to factor in to the final movie more than he does. I'm only exaggerating a little bit when I say he almost has more screen time in his cameo at the end of Split than he does here.

You don't do that with a star of Willis' caliber unless you know something is wrong. And it seems Shyamalan had to have known. 

Now, this is not me accusing Shyamalan of anything, except possibly entering into an agreement with his friend Bruce to appear in the movie even though he couldn't remember more dialogue than about seven words in a row. I do think it's interesting to have this perspective on Glass, though, because it reveals a lot about what Willis was dealing with even back then.

For example -- and here comes the spoiler I warned you about -- his death scene. In fact, in the film's climax, all three of the characters you see on the poster above die within about a minute of each other outside the institution where they were being held for scientific study and/or simple detention. 

Pointedly, James McAvoy's Horde (is that the right character name?) and Samuel L. Jackson's Mr. Glass both get sentimental, old school Hollywood death scenes, where they are closely attended by a loved one and they speak poignant words, through tears, that put a bow on their characters as they are expiring.

David Dunn? He gets unceremoniously drowned in a small puddle in a pothole.

In addition to that being a rather ridiculous way to kill a character that the audience presumably loves, it points up the limitations that Shyamlan may have felt he was dealing with. He may not have felt it was possible for Willis to deliver anything approaching a dramatic death speech.

Then again, when you drown, you don't get to give a death speech. So it worked out that the manner of his death did not require a speech, which I suppose was always going to be the manner of his death since it was revealed that water is David Dunn's weakness.

But really, Willis is barely in this film otherwise. There are a couple fight scenes but it is obviously someone else doing the fighting, another detail made logistically easier by the fact that Dunn wears a black rain slicker that shrouds his face. Though maybe a fight scene was something Willis would have been capable of doing.

I started this long movie too late, after two beers, so I wouldn't say I had the most uninterrupted viewing of Glass. But I could swear there was a good half hour in there when Willis doesn't appear on screen at all, which is strange indeed -- unless you know what was happening with him.

Again there is a potential justification for this. It's certainly arguable that Willis is the least essential of the three characters, at least as far as this particular film is concerned. It's an immediate continuation of the story of the Horde, who we just spent an entire film with two years earlier. But it's also named after its other main character. David Dunn -- who I guess is called the Overseer (who knew?) -- is a distant third in terms of importance, especially as Glass is executed.

Overall, with my maybe eight (!) short naps during the movie and finishing at 1:42 a.m., I'm probably not the most qualified person to tell you how good Glass was or was not. But I did find that it was really too long for the little amount that happens in the story, and that it didn't end up in what I considered a satisfying place.

But at least with all three characters dead, Shyamalan won't be tempted to make a fourth movie directly in this universe ... another element related to this film that Willis' condition has rendered fairly convenient.

Okay, back to non-Shyamalan movies.