Moving, Dignified, and Yet Not a Masterpiece

Rating: 8/10 (28 August 2006)

"World Trade Center" depicts the genuinely moving, true account of two Port Authority police officers who were the 18th and 19th of 20 persons rescued from the massive wreckage of the World Trade Center.
The two officers, John McLoughlin and William Jimeno, had themselves, not a day earlier, volunteered for the difficult task of evacuating the towers after they had been hit in the terrorist attack of 9-11.
They were rescued by two men, at least one of whom was an ex-Marine who, without any prodding except that from their own consciences, reported to the WTC site, and, risking their own lives, searched the still smoking and burning, jagged wreckage for survivors.
Nicolas Cage is breathtaking as McLoughlin. In his early scenes, he is so focused on his job as a no-nonsense sergeant that his eyes are like lasers. Later, when he is shot lying helplessly under the weight of the fallen towers, his face covered with ash and pulverized concrete, his mouth full of dust, Cage still gives an amazing performance.
Maria Bello, as his wife Donna, is quiet and yet riveting.
The only performance in the movie that stood out for its inadequacy is that of Maggie Gyllenhaal as Allison Jimeno. Maggie Gyllenhaal is not a working class Italian woman from New Jersey, and she can't act in a way that convinces you that she is one. But she was easy to overlook, given the high quality of the rest of the film.
There are strong early scenes depicting the officers' morning before the attack. Given what the audience knows will soon happen, these scenes are very poignant.
The attacks themselves, and the buildings' collapse, are depicted in a convincing way that doesn't milk the scenes for a sensationalistic, disaster movie effect.
Jimeno and McLaughlin's coffin-like, or, actually, torture-like conditions under the rubble are depicted graphically.
The claustrophobia these scenes might cause is relieved, a bit, by flashbacks and intercuts with the families' waiting for news and trying to cope.
I cried almost throughout the entire movie.
Having said that ... I have to say that this wasn't quite the movie I had hoped it might be. September 11 was a huge event, and it deserves a movie that takes some risks.
So much of 9-11 exists on film already. Millions watched it in real time as it took place on TV. We've all seen or read interviews of the incredible heroism that flourished after the attacks; some of us know volunteers who have told us their own stories. A filmmaker has to ask him or herself, what can I add to the viewer's store of knowledge about this event? PBS broadcast a documentary entitled "Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero" that remains, for me, the most worthy treatment of 9-11 on film that I have seen.
Overall, though, "World Trade Center" is a moving, inspiring, dignified treatment that honors truly heroic men and the best in humanity. If only more films could make such claims.