United 93 tells one of the stories of 9/11 in an absolutely rivoting just-the-facts manner. About half the film is set in various air traffic control centers, the national FAA control center and NORAD. The other half is set aboard United 93 up until it crashes in Pennsylvania. There are a few minutes the night before as the hijackers prepare and some time spent in the airport as people board for a normal flight. I found it hard to believe this was almost 5 years ago and how different boarding a plane seems since then.
The film presents the story almost in real time. The actors are unknowns and in fact several of the people in the control centers are played by the real people who were there. That gives a lot of authenticity to the film. It's shot almost entirely at eye level and with a lot of handheld cameras to really give you the sense of being in the control room or on the plane. At some points I wanted a clock on the screen ticking away the time, but I think that would have been a constant reminder that we know what's coming.
This isn't typical Hollywood anything. There's no exposition, background stories, characterizations or even names. You know as much about the passengers as you would if you were flying with them, in other words, nothing. In other films this might eliminate the emotional impact, but when you show people calling their loved ones to say "I love you" just before they die, you don't need anything else. It's hard to keep a dry eye during those scenes.
A few things struck me: how ordinary the start of the day was, how disorganized the response was, how no one could remember the last hijacking, and how NORAD brought up CNN for information, how no one knew who were the perpetrators or what they wanted or how much more there was to come. There are some liberties taken with what happens on the plane but they seem reasonable. Did one passenger want to do whatever the hijackers said? Probably there was one. Did the leader delay taking the plane? Maybe. Were they targeting the Capital? Probably either that or the White House. There was nothing that seemed egregious or sensationalistic.
United 93 is completely absorbing from beginning to end. There are no political statements, just the events of that horrible morning, told as faithfully and honestly as possible. This is one of the best films of the year.
1 comment:
Thanks for that review. I don't think I would have gone out of my way to see this movie without reading such a favorable review. Somehow my base expectation was something like one of the old Airplane movies ...or something like the old Poseidon adventure.
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