The Must-See Movie of the Decade

Rating: 10/10 (30 April 2006)

I would love to have Hollywood finally make a film (or twenty!) that shows jihadists, in all their demented villainy, being opposed and defeated by, say, courageous U.S. and/or N.A.T.O. special-ops forces.
However, in the meantime, I'll gladly take "United 93." The faux vérité approach -- which has been used and abused since at least "N.Y.P.D. Blue" in the early '90s -- is old hat to audiences, but never has it been more effectively employed than here by Greengrass. During the last 10-20 minutes of the movie, my heart was pounding so fast and my hands were shaking so much that I feared I was going to have a coronary. I found myself trying to WILL from my theater seat the passengers of Flight 93 to make that last, final, desperate push over the terrorists, into the cockpit, and to the plane's controls. Of course, the passengers don't make it. And, of course, I knew this when I walked into the theater. But that didn't make it any less devastating when I saw it on screen.
I implore everyone to see this film early and often. If we don't send Hollywood the message that we're adults and that we're tired of mindless, P.C. escapism, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves when Hollywood continues to shovel celluloid junk (e.g. "R.V.") at us.