Believe the hype - this is an amazing, gut-wrenching film

Rating: 10/10 (6 June 2006)

Saw this film tonight and wow, it's a breathtaking roller-coaster of emotions. Greengrass makes you experience it all, anger, confusion, fear, pity, nausea, sympathy, hope, pride... I could go on. This is unbiased but gut-wrenching film-making at it's finest, and deserves Best Picture awards worldwide.
Obviously it's impossible to give a 100% accurate depiction of events - because everyone has a different perspective on the simplest thing. But we have the airplane tapes from the Moussaoui trial, with the record of the altitude and speed changes and even hearing the commotion of passengers storming the cockpit, plus the phone conversations and messages (my God can you even imagine leaving your loved ones a final voicemail in a situation like that) and years of knowledge of what happens in air-hijack situations.
You know what's coming, and have seen every bit of footage, but it doesn't stop you re-living the shock of that day, wishing on the passengers to recover the plane, welling up with emotion when they're speaking with those safe on the ground, saying goodbyes and hanging up in dignity. Even the footage of the 2nd plane hitting the WTC is given a new, and stomach-wrenching immediacy. Everyone was caught flat-footed, with two planes sent to guard the capital of the most powerful country in history - and they turned out to have gone in the wrong direction, unarmed... In years to come it may seem like this attack could have been a whole lot worse.
This is a drama in a long tradition of depicting real events in as 'truthful' a way as possible, and like a Shakespearean history play, or a novel like In Cold Blood, that means some artistic decisions / licences need to be taken and the results will not be to the taste of everyone. Of those decisions, I feel more positive about some than others: the terrorists are realistic, not from a comic book or Hollywood movie, and the repeated use of 'I love you' e.g. by one of the terrorists before boarding, by the passengers before fighting back, is unbearably powerful.
On the other hand I'm not sure why Greengrass made out the German passenger, an identifiable real victim, as an appeaser/coward. Couldn't this have been an anonymous member of the cast, or would that not play to American audiences / backers?
Ultimately though that's nit-picking, because this is as visceral a film as anyone could bear. Some will see in the film the indomitable spirit of the US, others their unpreparedness and naivety; some I think will come out in despair and others with hope, but I feel sure this is a film that will be talked about for years to come.
PS Isn't it scary the numbers of bug-eyed monomaniac loons posting on this site that are convinced this film either perpetuates a right-wing conspiracy or is riddled with socialist, terrorist-loving, 'European' anti-American ideology. Have they even seen this film??!!??