| Director | M. Night Shyamalan |
|---|---|
| Genre | detective film, drama film, fantasy film, horror film, mystery film, science fiction film, superhero film, thriller film |
| Runtime | 106 min |
| Country | United States |
| Budget | $75 million |
| Box office | $248.1 million |
In 1961 Philadelphia, baby Elijah Price is born with both arms and legs broken, caused by Type I osteogenesis imperfecta, a rare disease that renders his bones extremely fragile and prone to fracture.
In the present day, unhappily married former star quarterback and security guard David Dunn is returning home to Philadelphia after a job interview in New York when his train, Eastrail 177, suddenly speeds up. He wakes up in a hospital room, unscathed, and the doctors inform him he is the sole survivor of the derailment that killed all 131 other passengers. After attending a memorial service for the victims, David finds a note on his car asking how long it has been since he has been ill and inviting him to "Limited Edition", an art gallery operated by the now-adult Elijah Price. He goes with his son Joseph to meet Elijah. Elijah explains his theory of real-life superheroes: that if he represents extreme frailty, there must be someone "unbreakable" at the opposite extreme. David is unsettled and leaves, but later finds he can bench press 350 pounds well above his expectations. Joseph idolizes his father, believing him to be a superhero, although David maintains that he is ordinary.
David challenges Elijah's theory with a childhood incident when he almost drowned and contracted pneumonia. Elijah suggests that this highlights the common convention where superheroes have a weakness, contending that David's is water. David recalls the car accident in which he was unharmed and ripped off the car door with his bare hands to rescue his then-girlfriend/now-wife, Audrey. He feigned injury from the crash to quit football because Audrey hated the violence of the sport.
Under Elijah's guidance, David realizes that his intuition for picking out dangerous people in his work as a security guard is actually extrasensory perception. Consciously honing this ability, David discovers that touch contact with people brings him visions of criminal acts they have committed. As people bump into him in a crowd, he senses the crimes they have perpetrated such as theft, assault, and rape. He finds one he can act on: a sadistic janitor who has invaded a family home, killed the father, and is now holding the mother and two children captive. David follows the janitor to the victims' house and frees the children. The janitor pushes him into a pool, where he nearly drowns before being rescued by the children. David strangles the janitor to death, but finds the janitor has killed the mother. He returns home with a renewed sense of purpose and rekindles his relationship with Audrey. The following day, David shows Joseph a newspaper article featuring a sketch of the anonymous hero, whom Joseph recognizes as his father, and tearfully promises to keep his secret.
David meets Elijah's elderly mother, who explains the difference between villains who fight heroes with physical strength and those who use their intelligence. Pleased that his theory was correct, Elijah asks David to shake his hand; David senses from the contact that Elijah was responsible for numerous high-profile "accidents," including David's train crash, to find his superhero rival. Elijah tells David, "Now that we know who you are, I know who I am". He adopts his childhood nickname, "Mr. Glass," as his supervillain moniker. Text onscreen states that David reports Elijah's crimes to the police, and Elijah is confined to a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane.