Review of United 93 (2006) by Parker M — 07 Aug 2011

3.5 Stars out of 4.

Paul Greengrass's United 93 is a meditation not a lesson. It doesn't stereotype, embellish, or explain anything. The direction is fairly muted, giving the voice to the people in the film who struggled through that tragic day of September 11, 2001. The passengers of flight 93 never made it though, which is a deeper misfortune. The bravery the people on flight 93 demonstrated is acclaimed as an iconic moment of heroism. It is no flaw that Greengrass doesn't enforce such heroism in his United 93. It's not an obvious stamp of audacity; the film wants to remember but not necessarily be remembered. That's the greatest audacity of all.

It was just another sunny day in America. People went to work, children went out to play, and the planes were flying to their destinations. Flight 93 had no other plan, when it launched from the Newark International Airport in the early morning. It wasn't long till Air Traffic Control noticed something odd. FAA National Operations Manger Ben Stilney (as himself, an actual FAA manager on 9/11) heard a suspicious recording, and when he incredulously heard it could be a terrorist attack, flight 11 had collided into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

It all happened in the blink of an eye. Air Traffic Control reacted but didn't know what to think. Things went from bad to worse, and soon 4 planes were declared "hijacked." One being flight 93. The suspects were Arab, but Greengrass treats this matter-of-factly, without any ethnic pretensions. The terrorists were wayward, scared for their lives but had their motives that none of us could or should understand.

The first hour of United 93 carefully lays out the tension. But where suspense relies on uncertainty, the build up in United 93 is drenched with dread, knowing that no matter how the story unfolds the twin towers of the World Trade Center will have turned to ash and the Pentagon will be cratered. Flight 93's anticipated target was Washington, D.C. but it was forced down in the fields of Pennsylvania from the passenger's counterattack. There was a level of hope for flight 93's passengers as they were the last plane still standing, so they had time to conceive of a plan to take back the cockpit.

I watched United 93 with awe but a deeper, acute sense of heartache. Hollywood exposes us so often to happy endings that it's in our blood to expect such a conclusion. September 11 was not a Hollywood movie, in that the heroes rose from the chaos but did not smite it. The military didn't march in and save the day. Good did not prevail. Nothing progressed in a linear fashion. It's fascinating how United 93 takes the mechanics of 9/11 and turns them into a movie. Most directors would feel obliged to make a statement, but what Greengrass displays is enough: his emphasis on remembering, a visual memorial.

The second half of United 93 is located solely on flight 93. Nothing much is revealed about the passenger's lives, and barely their names are given. Greengrass captivates us by breaking free of classic filmmaking and using his handheld style familiar to his Jason Bourne movies to create an irrepressible amount of urgency. Ironically, Greengrass's "Bourne Series" were action movies starring a hero that was simply indestructible and invulnerable to any villain. In United 93, this is a depiction of a day America revealed their wounds. There were no heroes or villains, though our inkling (but not Greengrass's) is to antagonize the Arab terrorists.

United 93's goal is simple but its emotional pull is unwavering. Where the film lacks in insight it makes up for in its uncanny realism. Many will struggle through this film because it forces you to embody the final thoughts of flight 93's passengers. I always admire film for its power in allowing us to feel things we never thought we could. United 93 puts us on the edge of our lives, while reflecting in absence of a moral compass. It makes us feel, not think deeply - and that's okay.