Taut, straightforward, uplifting, and heartfelt

Rating: 9/10 (14 August 2006)

World Trade Center does an excellent job of allowing us to see and feel the harrowing details over 24 hours of a Port Authority Police First Response team and the subsequent efforts to extricate its survivors. The effects on families and co-workers are also absorbingly realized. The pacing is excellent and music and camera angles keep us focused and are never intrusive. Only backdrop events immediately pertinent to the team and the rescue efforts are shown. The acting is uniformly excellent, with Michael Pena a standout. I am not a huge Nicholas Cage fan, but he was so good that while watching the film, I continually thought of him as Sgt. John McLoughlin and not as Nicholas Cage. For me, that is a high compliment indeed. Gregory Jbarra and Maggie Gyllenhall also deliver memorable performances. The only performance that bothered me slightly was Donna Bello's affectations as Cage's wife, but she probably had one of the film's more difficult roles in trying to balance her persona's natural reserve against the cataclysmic events of the day.
Certainly, this is the tightest and least self-indulgent piece of film-making Oliver Stone has ever done. I defy anyone honest to find any indirect (certainly no direct) political statements being made here at all. This film is all about courage and valor in the most trying of circumstances. I recommend highly to all, most especially those who want to put the events of the day behind them as I believe they will find this movie to be a cathartic experience.