Review of World Trade Center (2006) by Philip S — 28 Sep 2012

It's hard to believe that the same Oliver Stone who directed the angry anti-establishment tirades Born on the Fourth of July and JFK directed this sentimentalized version of 9/11 in New York. Stone is perhaps too aware that any 9/11 film, and especially one directed by Oliver Stone, is going to have to focus on the human drama elements at the expense of any political commentary.

So what we have is a film told almost entirely from the points of view of two trapped Port Authority policemen and the suffering of their families as they await news from the disaster site. To the extent that politics are invoked in this film at all, they tend to be of the "someone's got to avenge this" brand, as exempified by the gung-ho Marine who finds the trapped men and then goes off to Iraq in the film's pointed epilogue.

No one ever accused Oliver Stone of being subtle, and numerous scenes remind us that first responders are now on the front lines of a new kind of war in the American experience. The most interesting aspect of the film to me is watching the acting challenge that Nic Cage faces in making a character come alive who spends 3/4 of the film completely immobolized in rubble.

He pulls it off!