Something missing but OK

Rating: 6/10 (31 July 2006)

I just returned from a sneak preview of World Trade Center and can't say it was good, but it wasn't bad either. It's a great story about courage with the focus, not so much on 9/11, but on the story of 2 policemen and their families.
The problem I had was that if you are going to make a film about 9/11, then tell the story of 9/11. What made that day special was how people joined together to help out in any way possible. Fire departments, police departments and volunteers came from all over the country to offer their services and support.
Oliver Stone's film doesn't touch on any of that for most of the movie. There are no firemen mentioned (don't know if that was a legal issue or not) and really not many characters. Then, for some reason, Stone decided to toss in all of these rescue workers, marines, EMT's, some firemen, etc... for the last 15 minutes of the movie.
A lot of people gave their lives that day, and if, as a filmmaker, you are going to use a title like World Trade Center, then you should pay tribute to those people.
On the plus side, Stone did a good job of recreating that day and giving us insight as to how it must have been for families who had loved ones in the WTC.
Overall, I really wanted to like the film, and if you take the characters, put them in another collapsed building, change the title, and made it a stand-alone film, I would've liked it more. But instead, I felt like Stone was just using the World Trade Center name to attract attention and boost the box office numbers.