Nice polite doomed people.....

Rating: Null/10 (7 May 2006)

In a recent interview writer/director Paul Greengrass seemed sincere about wanting to present a meticulously researched "docu-drama" about the biggest mass murder in American history, paying full deference to the wishes and sensitivities of surviving family members; he was also careful to include the obligatory reference to Islam being a great religion hijacked by fanatics etc. (more on that in a moment). I haven't seen his other work but I'm sure it never would've occurred to him that he'd be making a kind of "snuff film." But essentially that's what we have here. We're forced to share a plane ride with a set of nice polite (mostly) white people, all of whom (known by us but not by them) are going to die that morning. Would anyone else out there care to admit having indulged since 09/11/01 in some guilty speculation about what it must've been like being in that plane? Well, here's your chance to find out. Except for a few liberties that we know Greengrass took based on the findings of the 09/11 Commission, I absolutely "buy into" this depiction of events on United 93. How do I feel afterward? Pretty damn glad to be alive, frankly.
Notice how slowly and mundanely it all goes at first: have you ever contemplated all the little things you do that would seem precious and amazing if you knew they were for the last time? Reading a newspaper, looking at clouds, drinking or eating or urinating, hugging or kissing (etc.) someone, watching TV, filling up your gas tank (if you can afford that nowadays) ----imagine never doing any of those things again, knowing everyone else'll go on doing them without you. That's where "United 93" really "got me" ---the part before all the action---having to sit with and listen to all these pleasant ordinary future corpses, the kind of people most of us know. We don't need to be "introduced to" them personally, in fact it's more poignant without that; each of us can better "identify with" each passenger, projecting our own personal details or those of people we know. (Some have asked "Why didn't the passengers 'do more,' or do it sooner?" Well, they'd been brought up to "behave themselves" and be co-operative. This wasn't Israel where terrorism's a quotidian reality. Nobody knew what to do.) The tension (not suspense) would be unbearable if Greengrass didn't often cut away to the air traffic controllers and others trying to function amidst mounting chaos and uncertainty. I would've believed every minute of that even if some of the real people hadn't been playing themselves. The single most effective moment comes not on the plane but as we stand with the controllers watching the second plane hit the other tower, leaving them (and us  again) in stunned silence....
I haven't delved into any political (or other) ramifications because the movie doesn't. George Bush is not seen, nor do I remember his name being mentioned. We hear the soldiers frantically trying to establish the "rules of engagement" from on high, and that's enough, point made. (I liked the one hijacker speaking German on the phone, reminding us that the failure to prevent 09/11 was an international one.) I do wish that Greengrass had had a character lament the absence of armed air marshals on the planes---that was my first question as news unfolded on 09/11---"Don't they still have guys with guns on those planes?" (One more reason I'm glad I haven't flown since 1985.) A few other points: Greengrass takes such pains to present the hijackers as devout Muslims that ironically he leaves at least some of us presuming the Koran must really say it's okay to kill civilians or they wouldn't be constantly quoting it. (Most of the hijackers that day were middle-class Saudis whose motivation was political not religious; many of them indulged in western "decadence" when they were living here.) Some have questioned the scene showing the passengers stomping a couple of the hijackers before reaching the cockpit, but that also seemed plausible to me. These people were scared and desperate and enraged, hearts racing and adrenaline pumping, spontaneously clawing for any chance to survive; too bad for the "holy warriors" if they got a few bruises en route to their "72 virgins" or whatever.
There can't really be a "spoiler" for a movie like this, but here's a warning for those who get dizzy easily: if you saw "Blair Witch Project," remember that queasy feeling you got from all that jittery hand-held camera work? Well, "United 93" magnifies that "big time." Mercifully, Greengrass doesn't let the camera dive all the way to the ground with the plane, or I'm sure I would've been racing for the red EXIT sign on which I had my eye. I've never actually vomited at a movie but this was touch and go. (It was hours before I felt "normal" again.) Had I not been distracted by feeling ill, I'm sure I would've found the whole thing as emotionally moving as Greengrass intended. But it's a masterful if brutal piece of work and should be seen by every American who can (literally) stomach it. Especially now with this endless bloody morass in Vietnam---er, sorry, Iraq---it's crucial for us to be reminded that violent death is real and horrible and permanent. (I don't care if you believe in an afterlife, it won't be this one that you've always known. If you believe in reincarnation, it won't be the same "you.") There's nothing "ennobling" about being a victim. None of those passengers would have chosen to be a dead "hero." If you leave the cinema enjoying each additional breath just a little more (I sure needed some air) and if that even just minutely influences how you continue to live and interact with other people (e.g. telling someone "I love you" daily, not just in extremis), then "United 93" really will be a "memorial" to so many lives stupidly wiped out..