A Fitting Tribute To The Passengers Of United 93

Rating: 10/10 (10 June 2008)

I can remember sitting transfixed in front of the TV on September 11, 2001. It wasn't a morbid sort of fascination with the events of that day that was keeping me glued to the screen; it was more a sense of numbed paralysis and disbelief; a sort of "how could this possibly be happening?" type of experience. I found myself (as did most people I suspect) with a lot of questions coming to my mind. Watching this movie (as I first did shortly after it was released) was a way of dealing with two of those questions: how would the passengers on those planes have felt as they approached what they must have eventually realized was their end, and, second, when the inevitable movies are made, are they going to be respectful or exploitative. This movie helped with both of those questions.
This is - as the title says - essentially the story of United Airlines Flight 93, one of the hijacked planes on 9/11. I was pleased that the movie was made with the co-operation of the families of the passengers; pleased even that the DVD doesn't have previews of other movies, as so many do. There's no attempt to shill anything else here. The DVD just goes right into the story. It offers a powerful, emotional and completely respectful account of what might have happened on board that plane on that terrible day. United 93, of course, was the plane that didn't get to Washington. It took off late, which meant that the passengers knew through their cell phones what was happening to the hijacked planes. Knowing that they were probably going to die anyway, these passengers decided to fight back - and, along with New York City emergency workers, ended up as the great (and tragic) heroes of the day, managing to thwart the hijackers and crash the plane into an empty field in Pennsylvania.
Aside from the passengers, there were three other groups looked at. The first was the hijackers themselves. I thought their portrayal was interesting. The leader of the group seemed to be portrayed as having some moral qualms about this. They came across to me as fanatical, but not evil - which is probably an accurate depiction of their mindset. Then there were the air traffic control officers. Many of them (most importantly Ben Sliney, head of the National Air Traffic Control Centre) played themselves, and considering that they weren't actors, they did a magnificent job of recreating the tension and chaos of that day. Finally, there was the military, largely centred around a NORAD base in New York State. They were frustrated - they didn't have enough fighters to properly respond, some of the fighters they had weren't armed, and even if they were armed they didn't have authority to engage the hijacked planes - that order could only be given by the President, and they couldn't reach him.
This is a marvellous and touching way to honour the brave passengers of Flight 93, as well as all of those who lost their lives on a day that no one will ever forget. 10/10