Intense, realistic and utterly compelling

Rating: 9/10 (12 November 2016)

A dramatised account of United 93, one of the four flights hijacked on 9/11. We see the events of that fateful day unfold from several perspectives - the passengers, crew and hijackers of United 93, several air traffic controllers in a few major control centres and from the perspective of the military, in particular US air defence at NORAD.
Intense, realistic and utterly compelling. Mixing dramatisations of actual events, eg the air traffic control scenes, with best guess estimates of what happened in United 93 we have a movie that is part-docu-drama, part-fiction (though probably quite close to the truth). This gives the movie a great grittiness.
Very well set up too. The scenes of passengers and crew getting on the plane are like any flight. This makes the movie even more engaging, as it shows it the characters were just everyday people going about their everyday lives, until fate changed that.
Even when action is called for, there's no gung ho, Bruce Willis-like heroics. It's all pretty realistic and engaging.
The sense of realism and real people is helped by having a cast of largely unknowns. Many of the air traffic controllers and some of the USAF personnel are played by themselves. No Hollywood pretentiousness and glamour.
And then there's the tension. Director Paul Greengrass builds the intensity well, and ends the movie at the height of it, i.e. perfectly.
Even though you know how it is going to end, you can't look away for a second, it is that compelling.
Superb movie.