Flight

Rating: Null/10 (11 February 2017)

What exactly transpired on United Flight 93 -- the fourth hijacked aircraft that did not meet its target on September 11, 2001 -- is something we may never know, but using information from dozens of interviews, this speculative drama portrays what may have occurred. Written and directed by Paul Greengrass, the film is a riveting experience with the deliberately unsteady camera-work and lack of big name stars making the film feel like a documentary at times. Whether it benefits from flipping back and forth between the title flight and the frantic ground crew is debatable; tension dissipates every time the film cuts away from the plane, but the exposition revealed in the cutaway scenes certainly adds to the sullen mood. The film's more hotly debated issue though is its choice to paint the terrorists as flawed, questioning and equally as scared and nervous as the passengers. It is a curiously objective move, and yet without any of the passengers or flight crew fleshed out in any depth, an odd dynamic develops as we get to know the terrorists better than their victims. The intense final 20 or so minutes of the film do need deep characterisation though as the passengers and surviving crew members band together in a surefire testament to the power of the human spirit. While the denouement is hard to watch here without a lump developing in the throat, there is something uplifting about the film as it showcases just how much a bunch of strangers can achieve together; history today would no doubt be different had they acted differently that day.