UNITED 93--An Intense But Moving Film

Rating: 10/10 (9 May 2006)

Like Pearl Harbor, Vietnam, Watergate, and the assassination of John Kennedy, the events of September 11, 2001 are burned into the American soul for all time--the day in which a four-pronged terrorist plot using hijacked commercial aircraft killed at least three thousand people. But one of those hijacked flights did not reach its target because the passengers on board had other ideas. And it is that part of 9/11 that is explored here in UNITED 93.
United Airlines Flight #93 was en route from Newark to San Francisco on that day, when four Al-Qaeda operatives stormed the cockpit, killed the pilots, and took control of the craft, aiming it for a specific target, which may very well have been the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington. What the hijackers hadn't counted upon was that the passengers on board, using both their cell phones and the phones already installed inside the passenger area, were made aware of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. As such, at least a dozen of them made a valiant effort to retake control of the craft. And while their efforts were doomed to end in a field sixty miles outside of Pittsburgh, they saved perhaps tens of thousands more in our nation's capitol.
British-born director and writer Paul Greengrass, who directed the 2004 Robert Ludlum adaptation THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, is scrupulous in detailing this intense and deeply moving saga. Though of course he can only speculate as to exactly what went on inside United 93 as the nightmare unfolded, by using the very same civilian and military air traffic personnel that were on duty that day and found themselves faced with an apocalyptic reality, he is able to depict in a microcosm what all Americans were going through on 9/11. Greengrass also wisely does not populate UNITED 93 with big-name stars portraying the passengers, the terrorists, or crew, thus largely avoiding charges that he would exploit these events for the almighty box office dollar. And by avoiding the political rhetoric that the tragic day has been used for since, he puts our focus squarely on the ordinary, average people simply fighting for their own lives and maybe thousands more, irrespective of false patriotism or jingoistic flag-waving.
Undoubtedly, and understandably, many will complain that it's too soon for a film to be made about that day. But when *WOULD* be the appropriate time to do it? One must remember that films about the 1978 Jonestown cult massacre and the 1976 Entebbe hijacking saga were made either for the small or big screen within under two years of those events; and ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN was released twenty months after the Watergate scandal ended with Nixon's resignation. And while there's no way for Greengrass to avoid the violence of the situation he's dealing with in UNITED 93 (hence the 'R' rating) and still be truthful, he is never exploitative in his approach. It is unquestionably an intense and quite painful film, one of the most intense films to have been made in many years, but it is also a deeply moving film about pure human heroism in the midst of a paralyzing nightmare, and it is an honest tribute to those who died on that day in general, and this flight in particular.