‘United 93’

This re-construction of what happened aboard United Flight 93 is a nail-biter, depicting the passengers who would first experience a new and terrifying post-9/11 world.

By: Bob Brown
   The heartbreaking outcome is never in doubt. But this re-construction of what happened aboard United Flight 93 and in traffic control rooms Sept. 11, 2001, is still a nail-biter. It will have you white-knuckled all the way.
   Writer/director Paul Greengrass conceived this project soon after the events of 9/11, waiting until the right moment to begin. When was the right time? Greengrass consulted more than 100 family members and friends of those who perished on the flight. The time for their story is now.
   As the director of Bloody Sunday (2002), Greengrass has earned his place in the pantheon of socially conscious filmmakers. If anyone were to make a film about 9/11, Greengrass is arguably the best qualified. But is Hollywood, the fantasyland of empty entertainment, the best venue to have made it? "There is a place for films that explore the way the world is," Greengrass argues on the movie’s official Web site, "and Hollywood has a long and honorable track record of making those types of films as well."
   That in itself is not an argument for the quality of such films; it’s a justification for undertaking them in the first place. So what to make of United 93? Is it a true record of "the way the world is" and if so, according to whom?
   In the film’s favor is its Aristotelian unity of action and, therefore, of time. Events unfold as they would have in real life. There are no flashbacks to earlier events, there are no distracting subplots, as well there might have been, considering all that was going on in the sky that morning. The camera does not cut away to worried family members who might have been receiving calls from loved ones on United 93.
   The focus is entirely on passengers and crew on the plane, and ground traffic controllers and military coordinators on the ground. Their actions are followed from the moment the plane is taking on passengers up to its final seconds.
   All else that is happening that day — and there was a lot — is seen as it would have been by those people. They were witnesses to a blurred and confusing cascade of events that were unprecedented. Greengrass made this film a lens through which to view the meaning of 9/11. The people of United 93 were, in his view, "the first to inhabit our new and terrifying post-9/11 world." Passengers on that plane had only 30 minutes to understand their situation and to decide what to do about it.
   It’s our own dilemma, Greengrass asserts: "Do we sit passively and hope it all turns out OK? Or do we fight back and strike at them before they strike at us? And what will be the consequences if we do?"
   The filmmakers meticulously studied the taped calls to and from the aircraft. They checked with friends and family to build character profiles of the passengers, determining how they might have acted in various situations. Then they chose a cast of mostly unknown actors, giving each a back story of his or her character and putting them in touch with family members.
   For the air-traffic control crews, many of the actual participants in those fateful events were chosen to play themselves. Most prominent among them is Ben Sliney, National Operations Manager, who decided ultimately to ground all aircraft when it gradually became clear that there was a coordinated attack in progress.
   The terrorists are depicted as devoted to their faith. They are courageous but frightened, ruthless and agitated in applying it, misguided as they may be. Islam is not up for criticism; its misuse is.
   The journalistic-style cinematography by Barry Ackroyd gives the film a fresh, you-are-there approach, which feels authentic. It’s eerie to imagine, however, that a news cinematographer is aboard the plane capturing everything. The hand-held camerawork may induce motion-sickness among moviegoers who are affected by this sort of thing.
   You are in the middle of the action as it builds toward tragedy. However, because the many characters are given equal weight, none is explored deeper than the surface of that day’s events. This results in an emotional distancing, even though the courage and heroism of those who acted decisively is everywhere evident. That is a limitation of attempting to re-create with utter verisimilitude those events, whose reality we can only infer from the taped calls. The one jarring Hollywood intrusion is a portentous musical score that pushes your buttons.
   Is this movie "the way the world is"? Greengrass’ script suggests his own view of where we are. The tragic day uncovered weaknesses: an out-of-touch executive branch and a tangled federal bureaucracy, which only decisive action by people working together could break through — ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. You keep rooting for them to succeed, even though you know they will fail.
   Besides being a memorial to those who died, the film is a call to action. It’s a salute to those who do not site idly by, accepting things as they are, and a reminder that what we do individually counts.
Rated R for language and some intense sequences of terror and violence.