Excellent departure for Oliver Stone. A Masterpiece!

Rating: 10/10 (12 August 2006)

World Trade Center/2006/****
Main Stars: Nicolas Cage Michael Pena Maria Bello Maggie Gyllenhaal
Director Oliver Stone (writer of Scarface and director of the recent film Alexander) is known to be a director of violence and profanity. Here he departs himself from that and directs this masterpiece filled with emotion and tragedy and also inspiration. Cops are assigned to where they need to go or guard for the day of September 11, 2001. It's just a typical day on the job until a few cops see a shadow of a plane reflected on a near building. That is the start of it all. You would think some of this film would be related to politics. And you would hear people's opinions on this tragedy and whose fault it is. People would most likely blame President Bush because he's the perfect person to blame right? Rumors are he's stupid. Plus, he is the Head of State and who better to blame than the person in charge. He's sitting behind his desk clueless. However, this film did not have any of that which most people are sick of hearing. And that is another reason why this film is so grand. It concentrates on two men- John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Pena)- who saw something other than evil. Something other than what the world saw. They saw that they had a chance to live and a chance to save and do their best to evacuate the people from the Twin Towers. What's inspiring about this film is that even though they are having an extremely hard time building up claustrophobia while under the rubble, they stay with it, they don't give up because they are tough and are built to take hardship. And that is exactly what the real Will and John did; they remained as calm as they could be and instead of panicking too much, they stayed strong. Back at home Will and John's wives obviously start to get nervous. Their husbands are out their breathing in dust and rubble and are stuck in one spot. John McLoughlin's wife Donna (Maria Bello) is the one always to be scared and rarely has any hope. However one of her four children wants to get out there and find dad and bring him back. Will Jimeno's wife Allison (Maggie Gyllenhaal) also is stressed and is pregnant which makes it even worse. It was definitely emotional and also very well done. They flip back and forth between families who don't even recognize each other when crossing each other in the hospital. Then they flip back to the scenes with Will and John trying to occupy them with something while they wait for rescue teams. Some of their conversations were actually a bit humorous and also emotional Conversing about past things and even envisioning them again and again. When they envision these flashbacks, they feel like getting out of the rubble even more. They need to find something to attract a rescue team so they can be saved. We urgently wait for one to come while we feel exactly what Will and John feel. Misery. I hope what I'm saying isn't discouraging you from seeing the film. The film is excellent (inspiring and not politically charged) but, yes, very emotional. I usually don't cry out loud and need a hanky to store all the moist snot. But I do on the inside and I feel sad when leaving the theater. Because right before the end credits, it tells you all the true events in captions that really did happen on that day and later when two men saw something other than evil and the rest of the people saw hell. Movie directed by Oliver Stone.