beautifully non-exploitative

Rating: 10/10 (19 December 2006)

I was truly impressed by the film. It was exceptionally tasteful and done on a small scale, it's the story of these two men and their families, and the men who saved them. Not of 9/11 or the attack on America, or terrorism, just what happened to these individuals, told on an individual scale. I understand why some critics said it was slow in places, but I think it needed to be for the sake of being true to the story. You know it felt a lot slower to the two men trapped in that rubble. It was not over-dramatized, there was no tearjerking, no emotional manipulation. It's just a straightforward story of what happened to these individuals.
I appreciated the fact that there was no footage of the planes hitting the towers, and no political commentary. We all know what happened on 9/11 on the large scale. It's the individual stories that should be shared, and this movie does just that for two men.
And the fact that, unlike the conjecture of United 93, it's entirely true, and the people who survived signed off on everything in the film made it well worth my time.
The only problem with it is that as I get older, I get more claustrophobic, and at first I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to keep watching, imagining the sheer panic I would feel in their shoes. I was sick to my stomach for a bit. But I took deep breaths and told myself that these men really survived this, and they deserved to have me hear their story.