Staggeringly good

Rating: 10/10 (29 April 2006)

There was no applause when the film ended, there was almost no sound at all except for a few audible sniffles. The power of the film, especially the last 8 minutes, kept most of the people rooted in their seats through most of the credits. I think the only reason I wasn't crying at the end is because I was with a friend and no way am I'm going to lose it in front of a guy friend unless he loses it first. He felt the same which kept us both just barely on this side of sobbing. The movie takes its time, setting the day up, the bulk of the 9/11 hijackings are seen through the screens of the ATC, except of course for the United 93 hijacking. Seeing the news footage of the planes hitting the tower did not have much of an effect on me, I saw them 4.5 years ago and many times since then, so while they were well used here, that was not the part that really affects you. It is when the passengers learn that the planes have hit, and that their plane will not be landing at any airport that the film truly grabs hold of you with a vice grip. They know they have to retake the plane, they call their families to say goodbye, and those of us watching cannot look away from Greengrass' powerful film. People say that it is too soon, but I felt that it wasn't soon enough. We forget about the people who died, the heroes, the innocents who did not have a chance to be heroes. 9/11 has grown distant to so many of us, it has just become something for us to be angry about, be it angry at the terrorists who did this, or at the administration who so readily used it to justify their own agendas. This is not a political film, it does not judge or comment on policy before or after that day. This is a human film, and an intensely moving one.