better than expected

Rating: 8/10 (1 December 2007)

Somehow I expected, due the emotive subject matter, a somewhat sickeningly patriotic propagandist movie - but it was none of that! Though we shall never know the exact words said and the actions taken on board that airliner, we can believe it must have been something of the sort.
Of course we knew the outcome, but I found myself nonetheless willing the passenger uprising to succeed and in the final minutes the intensity was enormous.
The hand-held camera movement (as in the Bourne movies) was irritating, especially for the scenes on the ground. Also I felt the lack of visual reference points on the plane, for example the lack of scenery out of the windows to give a greater sense of height was missing - at some points you felt the cabin was a studio set as all shots showing windows were "white".
It was a haunting and realistic movie, sensitively portraying the events as they must have unfolded on that fateful day from the perspective of flight United 93.