Paul Greengrass Creates the Impossible: Capturing the Horror of 9/11

Rating: 10/10 (30 January 2007)

Though it has been over five years since the devastation of 9/11 the memory lives on, a day no one will ever forget - nor should we. This viewer waited until UNITED 93 was released on DVD to view it, thinking that watching the film in the security of the home might make it less threatening. But what Paul Greengrass has created in reconstructing those few hours in 2001 that changed the psyche of the world forever is an achievement in courage, in understatement, and in respect - as fine a memorial as any that has been planned.
In using not easily recognizable but very fine actors in all of the roles, Greengrass allows his script to unfold gradually in the relaxed atmosphere of the usual air flight plans and minor delays, conversations heard by all of us as we await a take off of a plane. Concurrently he shows the four men, whose mission is to destroy 'the oppressors', prepare, pray, dress, and board. Then he moves into the planning rooms of air control, lets us feel the insidious progression of the hijacked planes, shows us the military response and paralysis, places us back in United 93, and unfolds the recognition by the crew and passengers of the danger in which they have been placed. The acts of heroism seem like natural permutations of human response all the way to the final abrupt dark screen when the plane goes down.
The degree of tension Greengrass and his superlative cast and crew convey is almost intolerable: magnify that times infinity power and we have a glimpse of what it was like to be in United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. The film is a remarkable achievement and is destined to become a hallmark for artistic representation of historic events. Highly Recommended on every level. Grady Harp