United 93

Rating

Director

Paul Greengrass

Screenplay

Paul Greengrass

Length

111 min.

Starring

TBD

MPAA Rating

R (For language, and some intense sequences of terror and violence)

Review

Many have said the time for a film about the horrific events of September 11, 2001 is not now. Others disagree. However, after a number of television movies about the event, Hollywood has finally gotten into the game with United 93, the first film about those tragic events to hit theaters.

United 93 takes on the least controversial aspect of that fateful day. The passenger jet crash landed in a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers revolted against the murderous hijackers. The story is filled with heroism and selfless acts. Some might even suggest the tale is a little too perfect to be real. Regardless, the film takes us inside that ill-fated flight to experience first hand what really happened on September 11.

Eschewing big name actors for relative unknowns, director Paul Greengrass keeps the focus on the story and the people instead of on the celebrity of his stars. This focus helps make the film feel more real and profound, featuring only two actors with any minor amount of image recognition: David Alan Basche (who had a half-season series Three Sisters and several guest appearances) and Rebecca Schull (from TV’s long-running sitcom Wings).

To properly set the backdrop for the film’s events, Greengrass blends real-life footage and staged recreations of Air Traffic Control, NORAD and other entities involved in the events of that morning. These scenes help to set the film’s tone and the audience’s mind into a period that is often painful to remember. The film is almost documentarian predominantly using reenactments instead of archive footage to tell the story.

While the film focuses in the end on the hijacking of only one plane, the entire film feels like an overall tribute to the men and women who lost their lives that day. The film also ignores the political aspects of the events, preferring to adhere to a factual account of events in the “9/11 Commission Report” without which, many of those occurrences would be amassed through rumor and false recollections.

United 93 is brilliantly woven together. Editors Clare Douglas, Christopher Rouse and Richard Pearson should be proud of their accomplishment as the film never drags, moves briskly to its conclusion without losing any of its emotional impact.

Unlike the television movies based on the same events, United 93 encapsulates its themes into the title. Instead of using the term Flight 93, which is significantly more common and is also the name of the TV movie, or United Airlines Flight 93, Greengrass chooses the shortened title United 93. With that one choice, he suggests that those individuals on the plane who, unified, brought down their attackers in order to save countless other lives. It isn’t often a title can convey so much so simply but leave it to Greengrass to make that connection.

Although the definitive movie has yet to be made (and likely won’t be until at least a decade or two has passed), United 93 takes us a step in the right direction. It helps the audience come to terms with the tragic images and horrific memories that mark the largest foreign attack on native soil in United States history.

We will see a bigger, more important picture at some point in the future that will effectively tackle all of the events leading up to, including and following September 11. It may even have to be an HBO miniseries but that day will come. Until then, rest assured that United 93 exists as a testament to those who risked their lives and the thousands who were impacted by a tragedy of such immeasurable proportion.

Review Written

February 5, 2007