"If I get out of this I'm quitting tomorrow."

Rating: 9/10 (1 March 2007)

When the first previews of "United 93" hit the theaters earlier this year, the feedback from the audience was pretty mixed. A common phrase used when taking about the upcoming disaster film was "too soon".
But in order to achieve the dramatical power the film pursues, it was crucial to release the film precisely now: almost five years have passed, but the unfortunate date still remains in our memories and therefore helps the film accomplish it's emotional drive.
The film's helmer, Paul Greengrass, has been making a name for himself for some time now, but he didn't exactly pop up until 2002 when his political drama/thriller about the Irish strike-turned-to-massacre, "Bloody Sunday", was released. In 2004 he directed a great sequel to "The Bourne Identity", called "The Bourne Supremacy". These two films give the viewer a good sense of his style of directing: very realistic, raw and not too dramatized. He really let's the images speak for themselves.
And now he has made quite possibly one of this year's most emotionally challenging films. It begins with a scene from a hotel room: a man that you will immediately see as one of the terrorists, praying. This is a key element when thinking about the terrorists and their motives: religion is definitely displayed as the soul motive for their acts.
After this we are witnessing the soon-to-be-hijackers arrive to the airport, go through security and finally board the plane. At the same time we see the other passengers getting ready for the flight, talking with each other and on the phone. You really feel like you're just witnessing actual events in a very documentary way instead of the usual Hollywood-style. The biggest factor in achieving this is the fact that all of the actors are relatively unknown especially outside TV. They really come out as just ordinary people on the edge of an enormous tragedy: and they all do a fantastic job.
The film goes through all the key moments of that day, from the first hijack speculations to the World Trade Center and Pentagon being hit. It is basically divided into two parts: there's the plane and its own atmosphere that is eventually being disturbed by violence, and there are the air traffic control towers throughout the east coast. The totally closed environment of the plane offers a great contrast to the control towers, where all the information and chaos is almost overwhelming, as opposed to the plane, where no one has any idea what's happening around them. The camera doesn't wander off these two sets for one second, so all the events are being witnessed through these two environments, especially the air-traffic towers. And this is just one more thing that strengthens the documentary style of the film.
The story that Paul Greengrass has created is naturally fictional since no one really knows what happened on the "fourth plane". However he has managed to gather a story that, created from the bits and pieces that are known about the flight, seems just about right and believable. Greengrass doesn't rush with the story, but let's it slowly evolve to the final climax that literally leaves the audience's mouths wide open. The ending scene is displayed with such beautiful minimalism and realism, that there hasn't been anything quite like it in cinema before. It crushes the viewer with it's total hopelessness, even though the course of the events has been clear to the viewer from the start. The only downside of the story is that some might find the air traffic control Â–sequences (that the film has quite a lot of) a bit dull as opposed to the plane-sequences. However this is highly individual and perhaps depends mainly on simply how strongly you feel about this whole event.
Paul Greengrass has truly created a masterpiece: a film that will have it's place in history for it's unbelievably realistic approach on a tragedy, that shocked an entire nation. True, the film owes much of it's emotional power to the fact that the events are still clear in our minds, but I don't see how it couldn't also work as an independent film, separated from the WTC-tragedy.
ps. This was originally written for school, and therefore has some pretty obvious stuff mentioned that I wouldn't normally point out.