An exercise in endurance.

Rating: 10/10 (12 September 2009)

The fourth plane to be hijacked on September 11th 2001 did not hit its target because of the immense bravery of a determined few: its passengers â€“ ordinary people who were not ready to die without a fight. Not heroes in white vests or cool leather jackets, but real people. Thankfully, 'United 93' keeps it that way. The characters seem as real as you and I, fretting and stressing that to stop the four terrorists from blowing up the plane or crashing it they are going to have to murder them with their bare hands.
The camera work in this film is so claustrophobic that we feel as if we are in the thick of the decision making. We are forced to sit in the air-conditioned near silence and consider if we would have what it takes to survive this or whether we would sit and wait for the end, cursing our own inaction. We peek around chairs and listen as our fellow passengers make phone calls to loved ones, knowing all of our goodbyes may be the last we ever share with a child or a wife or husband. We are trapped in this film and its inevitable end. It is utterly excruciating.
Interestingly, not only are forced to endure the aforementioned process of accepting death or fighting it off tooth and nail, but we are also, at the conclusion, stuck up against the fanatics who are crashing the plane, watching closely as they waver not a millimetre in their determinism. They cry 'Allah' as if someone had given them a script from God; they say it as if it was always going to be said with no chance of escaping this nose diving fate. This makes us more determined to stop them; an affectation that pays the highest testimony to the brilliant direction of Paul Greengrass.
See this film, but don't expect to ever want to endure it again.