As the world watches on in awe and disbelief, certain men stuck under the debris of the World Trade Centre frighteningly form their own perspective of said day's events.

Rating: 7/10 (13 December 2010)

World Trade Centre tells the terrifying true story of a handful of very specific kinds of policemen, namely Port Authority officers, caught up in the cataclysmic New York-based events of the eleventh of September in 2001. It is a rather harrowing retelling of certain events involving a group of men buried alive under an entire skyscraper that has fallen at the wayside, as their loved ones back home in the form of friends and family watch on in terror at the attacks unfolding on television, all the time looking on in sheer anxiety at how badly those they know are caught up in it. The piece is a somewhat gruelling two-hour plus experience about a pretty gruelling, rather harrowing scenario brought to life on the screen by American director Oliver Stone; the observing a fleeting chance at life several men have which is tense and involving. It's one of Stone's more toned down features, not overly aggressive nor confrontational despite finding room for political thematics, but most certainly warming and dramatic regardless.
At the centre of it is the dry, husky and worn tone of Nicolas Cage portraying John McLoughlin, amply flanked by two others in the form of Jay Hernandez's Dominick Pezzulo and Michael Peña's Will Jimeno; the three of them trapped under a whole heap of rubble following the deliberate crashing of two jet airliners into the World Trade Centre in 2001. For these men, like everybody else, what appeared to be another usual day beginning at dawn turned into a nightmare scenario. Stone opens the film in a melancholic fashion, some sharp angles looking directly upwards at the sky and the tall buildings to some angelic music feeling like a fleeting, final glance at what once was. When we're on the road with McLoughlin, there are some glancing shots of police officers on duty with another wide shot capturing a busy highway leading into the city, in what is a broader emphasis on those of whom were more affected than others that day; specifically in emergency service personnel and commuters only. There is little in the way of character establishment up to this point and the camera keeps its distance from most figures on screen at these points, be they workers in their cars or officers on the beat, so as to get across a broader and more archetypal sense of who'll come to be affected. The feeling of all New Yorkers being linked together as one feels prominent.
When the time comes for a bus load of the authorities to ship out to the scene of World Trade Plaza, McLoughlin is asked as to what's to be done but states that there "is no plan" since such a situation has never previously been processed nor preordained. The feeling of disillusion and disorientation felt at the time in the lack of a plan as well as the magnitude of the task at hand in that they're going in blind is here effectively emphasised. A range of men occupy the bus as they all head in, that collective sense of everybody being involved and in the situation 'as one' as before effectively put across by way of the Hispanic; African-American and Caucasian Port Authority officers riding on into the danger zone capturing a broad scope linked to the fact everyone is in it together. Upon arrival, the actors are given the final task before heading in of gazing upwards at the proverbial burning towers and recalling whatever emotions or reactions conjured on the day when it happened; here being the point that any audience member whom was an outsider looking in that day, regardless of nationality or where one was, are now to be taken inside so as to experience the true tale of a group of men first hand at how it all unfolded from within.
The interior lobby reveals innocents on the way out looking beaten and bloody, anxious to get away from the very location we're heading into. McLoughlin and his team look dirty; worn; scared and marked as it is, the venturing into the torrid unknown resonating with what prior knowledge we have of what'll transpire settling in and gearing us up for what will be a terrifying procession of events. Stone handles the men being trapped underground rather well, the characters exchanging information based on one another; rousing each other not to give up and to stay awake at all costs as they lay there in an elevator shaft having had dozens of storeys collapse on top of them. Back home, the wives of those involved in John's wife Donna (Bello) and their four children as well as Jimeno's in the form of Allison (Gyllenhaal) can only watch on via the television with bated breath as action is taken on what is now ground level.
Michael Shannon's Dave Karnes appears to run his own operation in trying to save anybody still trapped. A religious ex-SEAL, Karnes decks himself out in army clothing and ventures out into the rubbled remains of World Trade Plaza with an angry attitude of wanting to get out there as soon as possible and react so as to sort everything out. Karnes is a character that might be read into as being representative of America's attitudes post-attack, the verbal establishment of America now being "at war" with somebody with Karnes' attire and attitude to do what he does is political allegory disguised as acts of bravery. Stone captures a somewhat perfect overall tone to the film, respectful and knowledgeable of bravery without ever being too sentimental or mawkish. He doesn't overplay the achievement of what these men did at a fateful time; and certainly doesn't go down a route similar to that of John Sturges, whose adaptation of the men trapped at Stalag Luft III camp in The Great Escape was given a bright and breezy lift. Stone's film is smart and taut, an involving watch based on the stories of those at the forefront.