Not a great movie - brings nothing to the table

Rating: 5/10 (12 August 2006)

Living just outside of NYC in NJ, I saw the movie at a theater directly across the Hudson River from Manhattan. Here we're close (too close?) to the topic physically and emotionally.
As a result of the emotional proximity audiences have to the subject, this is a strange movie. I think Oliver Stone, being a great filmmaker, understood that the audience would be bringing a tremendous amount of emotion to the movie, so the movie he made is actually very emotionally flat compared with most films. WE are supplying the emotion to the movie, instead of the other way around.
Sure, there are points where you tear up, but almost any vivid description of 9/11 will do that; that's not the movie, that's the material. The recreations of the ground zero rubble are remarkable, and the opening scenes where the towers have been CGI'd back into the Manhattan skyline are touching. For locals, we remember the weirdness of the first time we drove back to work and didn't see the towers.
Because our wound is still raw, the movie treads very lightly. So lightly that as the wound heals, this won't be the definitive movie on the WTC. I think the definitive movie won't be made for at least another 5-10 years, from a historical, not contemporary, perspective.
Technically, it is very well-done. As the men are trapped, the film does an incredible job of conveying their terror. This is excellent work, but within this narrow plot line the film becomes divorced from the context. Ultimately, this could have been about firefighters in a collapsed building or earthquake survivors.
Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal are more talented than their roles required. There isn't a lot you can do or need to do with the "is my husband dead?" role.
(Spoilers here) If you stand back from the subject and analyze the plot, the story is about brave people who did their job by going into the towers. They are alive because the Sgt. was luckily prudent (they went downstairs to get spare oxygen before heading up) and quick-thinking (diving toward the elevator shaft as the building collapsed). They never even had a chance to actually save anyone before being trapped.
The rescuers were brave and prudent, taking out the one before going back for the other.
In no way would I, in real-life, want to diminish their heroism in any way, as these are braver men than me. But they were, in the realm of movie-making, "ordinary heroes" (if there is such a thing). In other words, they aren't cops like "John McClane" in Die Hard. In real-life, I am grateful for the people who serve and protect; as a movie, John McClane is more interesting to watch.
And we're like water balloons of emotion when it comes to 9/11; the tiniest prick and we're ready to burst, so Stone played it safe and flat. Stone was in a hard place. If the film had been more emotional it would have felt manipulative. Unfortunately, instead we have a film that simply isn't particularly compelling.
Ultimately, when the debate is about whether a movie should have been made rather than about what the movie says, that's not a ringing endorsement.