Far from perfect, but still very moving

Rating: 8/10 (15 October 2006)

When I first heard Oliver Stone was going to make this film, I was surprised: the world's most political director, not to mention Hollywood's number one troublemaker, tackling such a delicate subject, still painfully echoing in collective memory? What would the movie be like? What theories would it expose? Who was going to be blamed this time?
When I eventually saw World Trade Center, I was happy to see Stone came up with the wisest decision regarding the film: for the first time in his career, he has made a picture that doesn't accuse anyone of anything (we don't even see the hijacked planes, just the shadow of one of them), but celebrates courage and kindness. Instead of building up a JFK-like investigation on who was behind the events of 9/11, he focuses on the true story of two average citizens who were caught in the middle of the chaos.
The men in question are John McLoughlin (Nicholas Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Pena), two Port Authority officers who were sent to evacuate the Twin Towers and ended up being stuck between concrete ruins for hours waiting for someone to get them out. In telling this story, Stone divides the film in three sections: one detailing the protagonists'claustrophobic experience, another showing the nightmare their wives (Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal) go through, and the third about a Marine who decides to go to New York and provide some help.
World Trade Center is very unusual by his standards (except for the violence, which I think is a bit too strong for a PG-13), but Stone manages to deliver a good film without using his trademark conspiracy subplots: all he wants is to show us how a group of ordinary people didn't give up and just kept hoping for the best. The scenes with McLoughlin and Jimeno are the most effective, filled with consistent tension and superbly acted. Cage, in particular, relying solely on his voice and face, gives a stunning performance that should be considered for an Oscar.
There are, however, a few moments where the movie moves from great to ridiculous: some people have questioned the director's decision to over-dramatize the scene where the building between the Towers falls over Cage and Pena by playing it in slow motion, but that's quite forgivable in my opinion. What isn't, on the other hand, is the utterly risible "Jesus vision" bit and the redundant, pretentious flashbacks showcasing the two officers'private lives. The film also gets frustratingly rhetorical with the closing voice-over, emphasizing how brave those men were on that particular day and all the rest: it's practically a summation of the entire movie, in case someone failed to understand what Stone's latest opus was about.
Nonetheless, most of the time WTC proves to be a riveting film. Not an essential Stone film, but quite better than the half-cooked Alexander.