A Kinder, Gentler Oliver Stone

Rating: 9/10 (12 August 2006)

In 'World Trade Center,' a surprisingly even-handed and well-modulated Oliver Stone steps on the brakes and turns down the volume, and puts away his customary histrionics and hysteria long enough to allow a true story about quiet, ordinary, everyday heroes caught in extraordinary circumstances to stand on its own and speak for itself.
John McLaughlin--Nicolas Cage--is a sergeant in the NYC Port Authority PD who's called upon to recruit volunteers to travel across town to the title location to help evacuate the towers following the impact of the first plane; Will Jimeno--Michael Pena--is a Port Authority cop, the first to volunteer, albeit somewhat reluctantly. They and their friends and fellow cops don't know the exact nature of the emergency and they're rusty with the breathing equipment and heavy fireman's gear they're given to wear and take with them, but they're aware the situation is grave and that their colleagues from other, nearer city PDs are overwhelmed. They're also aware that the chances that they might die are superb, and more formidable by the inch. With all this information, they're still standing in the WTC lobby trying to figure out what to do when their world crashes in on them. Literally.
'World Trade Center' takes a story we thought we knew and uses it to discover new territory; by turning inward and keeping the special effects to an absolute minimum, Stone and screenwriter Andrea Berloff focus their attention to the formidable heroism displayed that day by depicting what amounts to an extended conversation between McLaughlin and Jimeno. In a way, the movie is as intimate as Malle's 'My Dinner with Andre,' except for the fact that the participants are buried alive in rubble, and quite possibly dying before our eyes.
And in listening to the nature of the two mens' conversation--the two discuss the most trivial and banal subjects: Demi Moore, 'GI Jane,' their kids--we realize that the mens' words are secondary to the fact that they are literally talking to keep each other conscious, staving off shock, saving each others' lives. They're decent, ordinary men in circumstances more desperate than most of us can imagine, and through their attitudes and the tones of their voices, they need to rescue each other, prop up each others' spirits, and live.
Nicolas Cage disappears to far into the character of McLaughlin that he nearly ceases to exist. A trailer for another upcoming Cage film, 'The Wicker Man,' plays before 'WTC,' and you wouldn't recognize the actor from one performance to another if you didn't already know him. Cage takes the less-flashy of the two primary roles--Pena as Jimeno has the use of his arms and is therefore more animated--but each time Cage delivers a line he refocuses, and rivets, our attention back to his tortured face and vocal tones. By underplaying his role he steals the show.
And the competition is keen: Pena is superb as Jimeno; Maggie Gyllenhaal is sweetly perfect as Jimeno's pregnant wife, Allison; Maria Bello is strong and authoritative as McLaughlin's wife; Michael Shannon, as a USMC sergeant from the Midwest who travels to NYC to do what he can to help, seems to be working for a director higher than Stone. Shannon has the bearing and the laser attention of Elijah walking out of the wilderness and into the land of the Baal gods. Frank Whaley, a terrific supporting actor who's never quite been handed a breakthrough role, contributes a quiet, dignified performance as a former paramedic pressed back into service. And check out Julie Adams, as the pregnant Allison's grandmother.
Craig Armstrongs's cerebral score sounds enough like Adagio for Strings to contribute an adequate gravitas to the film and remind us we're watching important stuff. And the cinematography, by Seamus McGarvey and augmented by archival news footage and NASA satellite photography, is seamless and stunning: When the first tower collapses, hell is unleashed; when the second tower goes, it happens through our ears and inside our heads. Theatre auditoriums equipped with digital sound might need to boost the film's rating from PG13 to R. So let's hear it for the sound department...no pun intended.
By sticking to the facts and allowing the drama to unfold at its own pace, Oliver Stone displays a maturity he's hinted at but mostly kept to himself up until now. For too long, Stone's seemed uncomfortably like the lone adult sitting at the kiddie's table at Thanksgiving. The maturity displayed here, and his choice of an ultimately upbeat and life-affirming story, feels somehow like Picasso caught red-handed in Norman Rockwell territory. 'World Trade Center' is like a Ron Howard film, directed by Oliver Stone.