Heartbreaking film-making

Rating: 10/10 (25 April 2011)

This is a powerful film. The absence of big names and the minimal use of music to suggest how we should feel ensures that this film portrays the events of that horrible day in the respectful manner which they deserve. I kept on trying not to think of the passengers as characters but as real people. However, there is some degree to which the characters have become larger than life and their story so familiar that there is catharsis in watching them unite to fight against fate. Director Paul Greengrass was the right man for the job. He got approval for his picture from many families of the victims of flight 93 and I think rightfully so.
It was heartbreaking to watch the segment tracking the characters before the hijacking. As viewers, we know what happens and one hopes against hope that somehow the inevitable will be avoided. This obviously does not happen and it's heartbreaking. We watch the passengers preparing in the relatively unperturbed way in which we all approached flying before 9/11. One wants to yell at the screen for the characters to leave, to fight, to avoid what we know will happen. I felt a great deal of sympathy for the air traffic controllers who didn't know that they were working on the day of the worst terrorist attack in US history. I also felt a lot of sympathy for the military personnel who were trying to secure approval for scrambled planes to mobilize in order to head off a hijacking.
The film is based on documented information detailing what happened on that fateful flight. I found the section of the film in which family members made final phone calls to their families extraordinarily moving. Again, the hindsight which allows us to know that indeed these passengers would not leave the plane alive is what makes this section so moving. Greengrass never plays up the emotional gravity of anything, even at points at which a lesser film-maker might have succumbed to the temptation to secure a greater emotional pay-off from a directing decision, such as when Todd Beamer said "let's roll". This is to his credit. Greengrass offers no comment on the actions of the authorities, the passengers, or the terrorists. I don't think any movie could pay tribute to the events which transpired on United flight 93 than this film.
One final note. If you have the DVD release of this film, watching the 45 minute featurette Greengrass made discussing with United 93 family members the making of this movie, including the cathartic meetings between family members and the actors who would portray their lost loved ones, is must-see viewing as we see family members several years after the tragedy, dealing with grief which never goes away.