United They Fall

Rating: 10/10 (25 May 2006)

Oh, stop whining!
*United 93* was bound to bring out the bitch in politically-gutless 2006 America: any issue that invokes the oh-so-hip splash-appellation "9-11" is like a hog call to every uninformed swine with two cents worth of a knee-jerk opinion.
But beyond the whines of "too soon" and "disrespect" and "exploitation" is the sheer raw power of this breath-defying film experience. *United 93*, unlike its detractors or those too disturbed to enter a theater without first checking Terrorist Alert colors to concede more usurpation of their civil liberties, displays no histrionics, no flag-waving and no political stance.
Here's a suggestion: shut up and watch.
Writer-director Paul Greengrass delivers a film like nothing you will ever see regarding that fateful day of 2001 - there is no structural arc, no foreshadowing of events, no statements made that in hindsight will hammer home portent; no character studies, no stereotypes and no movie stars. We feel as alienated on the plane  amongst those vaguely familiar aspirin ad faces - as both passengers and terrorists.
Like any Titanic or Jesus movie, everyone in the world knows the ending. Yet every minute, every second is compelling. Greengrass somehow still convinces us that we are boarding a plane on a routine flight from Newark to San Francisco on September 11, 2001. When it is hijacked, we are almost as surprised as the passengers.
Four Muslim hijackers dispatch the pilots and aim the plane on a suicide course at (it is presumed) the White House. Through clandestine cell-phoning, the hostages become aware of the WTC Tower attacks, and deduce that they too are on a fuel-laden suicide missile. From innumerable accounts (from family of the deceased, military bases and air traffic facilities) Greengrass has pieced together this tale of what might have transpired after the hijacking. Though the passengers (we again presume) fought valiantly to regain control of the aircraft, it crashed in a Shanksville, Pennsylvania field, 150 miles northwest of the Capitol. No one survived.
What is *United 93* trying to achieve? Is it an entertaining piece of fiction? A docu-drama? A tribute? A eulogy? As with all art, the answer seems to be different in the eye of each beholder. There are as many views terming it all these things, as there are those who misconstrue its purpose and then criticize it for not achieving what *they* wish it to achieve. For example, those considering it a "tribute" castigate Greengrass for intercutting scenes of the Muslims praying to their god with scenes of the Christians praying to *their* god, thus tarnishing the "tribute." But Greengrass has crafted an altogether neutral account, an objective document of that dazed and confused day of infamy.
Greengrass effects aloofness with non-intrusive hand-held cameras, flitting about the action and crash-cutting over reams of small talk and daily routine  from airport control towers, to the Muslim hijackers, to passengers, to military control bases. Considering many of the air traffic controllers play themselves (most notably, Ben Sliney, FAA National Operations Manager), there is no slouching in the acting department, each performance evoking an on screen sincerity long forgotten by politicians and movie stars.
John Powell's understated score bleeds intermittently through the tension, and at one point, is heart-wrenching: in a long shot showing the North Tower billowing smoke, there is a single orchestra stab as Flight 175 slams into the South Tower. And then there is silence. That one stunning second is the only archive footage used in this film. It will wring the breath from your body. Whilst watching the awestruck participants on screen, in their unmitigated shock, that day-mare becomes real all over again.
There are those that maintain the passengers "gave their lives in the name of freedom"; that they were "heroes." No. They gave their lives in the name of trying to save their lives. And a "hero" is a person who has OPTIONS and yet chooses the hard road. These people were brave (maybe), courageous (maybe), but heroes? No. Yet there is nothing less noble in what they achieved - appending a falsity to their motivation is to make those left behind feel better about themselves.
Even at the most obvious juncture to create Hollywood Heroes  Flight 93's eventual crash  Greengrass avoids the temptation judiciously, also wisely eschewing gratuitous explosions (even the shots of the WTC Towers afire are almost incidental). Tastefully and powerfully, instead of a Michael Bay yellow-vermilion fireball cut from four angles and tweaked to Hiroshima level, the aircraft's final impact scene is viewed from the inside of the cockpit, as passengers madly grapple with the Muslim pilot, as the plane tilts earthward, turbines and people screaming, and amidst arms and bodies frantically entangled, the ground swells up sickeningly fast with a gut-wrenching cut to black.
By dambusting past the occlusions thrown up by the government with this simple and direct film, *United 93* jarringly opens the nation's eyes, bringing the unresolved Taliban holy war to the forefront of our consciousness once more.
Remember Osama Bin Laden? The original Bad Guy in this conflict (who actually *took the blame for the WTC attacks*)? Initially exploited as an excuse to manufacture fear and pillage civil liberties, Bin Laden was quietly reshuffled to the bottom of the deck by the Republican administration in order to keep their pockets padded and their consciences black as the insides of rectums. Like AIDS and The Environment and Gay Marriage, an unresolved platform garners so much more political leverage. And it's just plain rude to arrest your business partners while you're still doing business with them...
Yet there are no causes explored in this film, no reasons explained and  most refreshingly - no moralism attached. *United 93* may be nothing more than an unstructured fiction based loosely on fact, but it may achieve nothing less than a nationwide catharsis.
(Read this unabridged article at: www.poffysmoviemania.com/United93.html)