United 93 Review
By David Kempler
9/11 Is Back
9/11 Heros
I suppose that it was only a matter of time before a movie about this would be made. It seemed a little bit soon but who knows when the appropriate time is to present an event that so mightily impacted all of us. Perhaps there is no right amount of time to wait.
Paul Greengrass wrote and directed "United 93" and left himself open to all sorts of criticism by even attempting to portray the story of the airliner that was hijacked on 9/11 and later crashed before hitting its desired target in Washington D.C. Greengrass pulls off the near impossible by handling the story in a documentary like fashion with no political editorializing. There is no need to make us feel one way or the other. It's a given and Greengrass lets the events tell the story instead of manipulating the audience. Instead he treats us all like adults.
We follow the terrorists as they get up and wash before performing a crime that no one will ever forget. They prepare for their task as if they were merely going to work. There's very little extraordinary about the scenes before all of the passengers arrive at the airport. At the airport is where the tension starts to mount but Greengrass doesn't try too hard to show us what happened. He lets it unfurl. This causes the audience to remain slightly detached from what we are watching.
"United 93" is almost serene until the plane takes off. Then we watch the terrorists get edgy in their seats, waiting for the signal to take over the cockpit. Tension builds slowly and naturally until everything explodes when they take over and kill their first victims. Greengrass was also very wise to put together a cast of virtual unknowns. If he had cast any well known actors it would have taken away from the story and made us focus on one character and this is one tale that is not about one person. It is about all of us.
