Review of United 93 (2006) by Eddie C — 21 Jun 2012

Paul Greengrass's "United 93" is a powerful film. You'd expect no less from a film revolving around the events of the 9/11 attacks, but it's actually really hard to pull off while respecting the subject matter and keeping the common audience emotionally invested.

"United 93" sets the tone of the film early on, and the knowledge that United Flight 93 is a doomed aircraft makes it really hard to watch these passengers board the plane. Adding onto that, the cast is composed of relatively unknown actors, which gives "United 93" a believable feel (instead of feeling Hollywood) and effectively relates to the audience. In fact, Greengrass keeps "United 93" believable throughout. The last 30 minutes of "United 93" was intense, it had precise editing and a subtle usage of background music which worked instead of destroying the mood. At the end, Greengrass had my full attention, and it ended so abrupt that it affected me a great deal on an emotional level.

One of the very few complaints I had were some of the shots made by Barry Ackroyd, the camera constantly zooms in and out, and there was also the sometime effective, sometimes not application of the shaky camera technique. Another complaint was that the film didn't really feel like it was about United Flight 93, there were quite a lot of scenes focused on the air traffic that was sometimes dull because it focused on the confusion of the seemingly inept conductors. Beside these points, "United 93" is an effective illustration of the events of 9/11, and is one of the best films of 2006.