Stone makes a true story feel fictional

Rating: Null/10 (1 October 2006)

You'd expect an Oliver Stone film about the attacks on the Twin Towers to be a paranoid conspiracy film, but the director of JFK has confounded expectations by coming up with a drama about two cops trapped under the rubble of the World Trade Center after the towers collapsed.
The movie focuses so narrowly on the fate of the officers (Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena) and their waiting wives (Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal) that we miss the bigger picture, and it might as well be a tale of miners stranded underground.
Stone's film celebrates heroism; but by restraining his usual flamboyance in favour of following the Hollywood formbook he's succeeded in making a true story feel fictional.