I went to see "United 93" this afternoon at the Muvico multiplex on Interrnational Drive
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-- and MAN! For once the reviewers had it right! An awesome movie and a very intense experience that leaves the viewer emotionally exhausted when it ended.
At the showing I attended there was much cussing of the Muslim hijackers and murderers -- and cheering when the passengers, under the command of "Let's Roll" charge the Muzzies and start getting some paybacks by cutting Islamic throats and generally just tearing their sorry camel jockey asses to pieces.
The movie ends with a black screen and silence. At the front of the theater a man stood up and yelled two times: "Death To Islam!"..."Death To Islam!" and once "Remember 9/11"...
Many in the audience responded with "Yeah!" and "LET'S ROLL!"
Whether intended or not, Greengrass reveals the faces of men at war. And even though there are no grand, overarching truths about humanity, or good and evil, or the superiority of one set of beliefs over another in U-93 (there is a short scene toward the end of the film that shows both passengers and terrorists praying), the singular fact that “they” attacked us and “we” fought back cannot be denied, cannot be hidden despite the desperate attempt by some over the last 5 years to do so. We are at war.
Paul Greengrass and Universal set out to tell the story of United Flight 93 on that terrible day in our nation's history. They set about the task of telling this story with a genuine intent to get it right--the actions of those on board and honor their memory. Their extensive research included reaching out to all the families who had lost loved ones on United Flight 93 as the first casualties of this war. And Paul and his team got it right.
As Friday's opening of "United 93" approaches, the questions tug at the mind and the heart.
Are you ready for a movie about the passengers who fought back on the hijacked plane that crashed into a Pennsylvania field on 9/11?
I saw United 93 yesterday.
I'm not sure if I can use this word as an adjective, but it keeps coming to mind, so here goes. It was shaking. I was shaken. I was shaky. However you want to say it, that's what it did.
It was also, at turns, moving, eerie, creepy, heavy, stark, gritty, exhilarating. I'm not gonna lie. It wasn't easy to watch. But I'm glad I watched it.
As the chilling, soul-wrenching, and unglamorously heroic events play out, the controversy that has surrounded the film -- is it too soon? is it exploitative? -- seems ludicrous. Too soon? It's been nearly five years since the terrorist attacks. Exploitative? What is exploitative is the way the events of 9/11 have consistently been exploited for political purposes. In fact, the film comes across as determinedly unexploitative. The forty ordinary people on the ill-fated flight -- 33 passengers and 7 crew members -- acted in an extraordinary manner. It's offensive to suggest that we are somehow collectively too squeamish to watch
This movie is real. It portrays actual events and it tries to duplicate them as closely as possible. So when you watch this -- it's about an hour-40 minutes, hour-45 -- when you watch this you know what's going to happen at every stage. Well, you know what's going to happen at areas you know. Some of the behind the scenes things that are portrayed in the movie you'll see for the first time, and I don't know how accurate those are. For example, the North American Defense Command out of Rome, New York, the military up there that's designed to identify rogue aircraft entering our space is actually portrayed as bumbling incompetents, unable to keep track of domestic airliners when they've turned their transponders off.
United 93 (* * * * out of four) is an unflinching, powerfully visceral and haunting portrait of the tragic events aboard one of the terrorist-commandeered flights on the fateful morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Painstakingly researched from reports of flight recordings, air traffic controllers and aviation officials, as well as cellphone calls made to family members by some of the passengers, it is undeniably the most gut-wrenching and captivating film released this year.
What writer/director Paul Greengrass has re-created is not only the devastating human drama aboard the flight but also the reaction of authorities on land as they become acutely aware of — and powerless to stop — the horror of the developments.
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