Recommended

Rating: 9/10 (14 August 2006)

As a New Yorker who remembers that day all too vividly, I am reminded of Spielberg's approach to "Schindler's List", using the little girl in the red coat to humanize the incomprehensible masses in the tragedy of the holocaust; we can really only absorb one story at a time to even begin to understand large scale loss of life. In this film, Stone accomplishes the impossible by concentrating on two men and their families--instead of trying to portray the full scale of 2,800 lives lost and a city/country changed forever. By avoiding the obvious (only briefly alluding to a shadow of a plane, never showing the complete collapse from the outside) and concentrating on the points of view of the men inside the tower, Stone enables viewers to fully understand the confusion and fear of those on the front lines.The politics of 9/11 can be left for another film and Stone, rightfully, does not explore the causes or subsequent results of that moment in time. Some critics have unfairly emphasized that there is no sustained tension or suspense because we know the outcome. Well, we knew the outcome of "All the President's Men"--and virtually every Shakespeare play/film--and the impact on the viewer does not suffer when the direction, script, editing and acting are of such a stellar quality. There are many more stories to be told of 9/11, but few will match the humanity, detail, and spirit of this exemplary film.