At times almost too horrifying to watch but definitely worth seeing

Rating: 9/10 (29 June 2006)

As far as I understand it, this is the first 'proper' movie about September the 11th 2001, and boy is it emotive. British director Paul Greengrass, who is no stranger to controversial, intensely real films (such as Bloody Sunday), has fashioned an incredible cinematic experience that is almost more powerful because of our knowledge of how events on the day unfolded.
As I'm sure I need remind no one, 11/09/01 (UK date) was when four flights within the US were hijacked almost simultaneously. As air traffic controllers, military representatives, politicians and the public looked on helplessly, three of those planes flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre of New York and one wing of the Pentagon. A fourth plane, United 93, crashed in Pennsylvania. This film is about that fourth aircraft.
What this movie shows so horrifyingly well is the complete chaos the hijackings caused. As soon as the first aircraft stopped responding to hails from ground control after a garbled message about 'We have the planes,' hijacking was instantly suspected and the powers that be informed. But no one knew what protocol to implement, no one was sure who was responsible for what and, most definitely, no one in the loop suspected that the planes might be used as weapons in their own right...
This oversight, an oversight as the possibility of hijacked commercial aircraft being used as missiles had been considered by US military strategists, meant that it wasn't even possible to deploy fighter jets to defend America from this new, horrendous threat. Even if the fighters had been in place the President was out of contact and only he was regarded as sufficiently senior to give the order to shoot down civilian aircraft. As the film goes on to tell us, in a text epilogue, by the time any orders on the rules of engagement had been set the four planes were already crashed.
However, it is unfair to blame Bush for this disaster, not least because it would have taken an astronomical degree of recklessness to OK a shoot-to-kill policy on all potentially hijacked aircraft. The President cannot be faulted for being unaware of the impending crisis and, from the perspective of this film, it seems that the blame (other than for the terrorists and their masters) such as it is, lies with the intelligence services, but they don't warrant a single mention throughout. No one else had considered the possibility of hijacking with any seriousness because, in fairness, the last hijack on US soil had been ages beforehand (most hijackers wanting to get into the country, rather than out of it) and, with several thousand planes in the air at any one moment (the sheer volume of traffic mentioned is staggering) the people responsible for air traffic control had to concentrate on other aspects rather than potential terrorism.
Instead we follow the ordinary men and women on the ground and in the air... determining that multiple hijackings may be underway, trying to find out what to do in the situation, only to lose sight of the planes when, to the utter shock of all concerned, it turns out they've flown into the twin towers. Perhaps the most harrowing moment is when the second plane, picked up visually by the New York air traffic controllers, is seen to fly straight into the second tower. All the emotions and memories of September 11th itself are brought bubbling back to the surface, though not because of insincere sensationalism.
Instead this film eschews cheap theatrics. The ground staffs are not instantly capable of dealing with the crisis, the plane crew do not battle the hijackers like true American heroes (even though they were forewarned of the potential for hijackings), nor do the passengers stand up as one to fight the terrorists... instead we get a far more harrowing perspective: reality. It is only when the passengers realise the terrorists are flying the plane, the pilots are dead and, with surreptitious calls to their loved ones on the ground, that the hijackers are most likely intending to crash the aircraft into an American city, that they take action. There is no 'Let's roll!' moment of patriotic heart thumping, instead it's much more of a 'If we don't move now we won't move at all so let's roll...' In this the film is intensely real and intensely good, with the few moments of heroism being reduced to the likes of a woman giving her phone to another passenger after making a final call to loved ones (this touched me almost to the point of tears), or the people risking incurring the terrorists' wrath (and the potential detonation of what looks like a bomb around one of the hijacker's neck) so that they can meet in the rear and form a strategy to be diffused to the other passengers via a horribly fallible version of Chinese whispers.
The acting, by unknowns or the people who were there on the ground playing themselves, is universally fitting and good. Even the terrorists are three dimensional characters, not inhuman monsters. Similarly there are no attempts to glorify or degrade anyone, not even the easy target of the President or the CIA. Instead we get a simple film about an appallingly simple story: how four sets of men bluffed their way into control of four different planes and martyred themselves to a cause that most likely has already forgotten their names, if not their actions. Whether this is 'good' in terms of film making or morality (the 'should this movie have been made?' debate) is now a moot points. It has been made and should now be watched by everyone who thinks they know everything about Islam, martyrdom and September the 11th. United 93 is not glamorous or exploitative. It is merely a horrifying and objective look at one of the worst days in mankind's recent history.