Nothing special, alas.

Rating: 2/10 (11 September 2007)

The director, Oliver Stone, labored under multiple handicaps in bringing this story of two trapped Port Authority policemen to the screen. First of all, the narrative is hindered by the constraints of reality. Nothing of much cinematic impact really happened during the attacks on the twin towers. Two airplanes crash into the towers, then a few hours later, kaboom, and the rest is rescue and recovery. It's inherently undramatic.
And there were probably a myriad heroes but no single individual strapped to the mast, singing out, "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" So there can be no hero. And there can't be any villains either. Nobody knew who was behind the attacks at the time. And if you exclude the jihadists, what's left? Kirk Douglas' egomaniacal reporter in "Ace in the Hole"? In other words, you have a film about two PAPD officers immobilized in the rubble, able only to speak to one another, and there follow the kind of clichés you expect from a war movie. The pregnant wife at home, vomiting at the news, and declaring that she will give her unborn child the name her husband wanted. Flashbacks to happy home lives, when the trapped husbands gave their sons instructions on the use of a saw, beaming at their wives. A Marine inspired by a visit to his church who plunges into the rescue effort. And it gets worse. When an officer dies, he sees the tunnel of light with Christ at the end. (What if he'd been a Jew?) A shame, really. The weakness of the drama is not compensated for by spectacular scenes of buildings collapsing -- which is probably a good thing, because that way lies just another disaster movie. More telling is the absence of any exploration of the systemic response to the catastrophe. One of the problems plaguing the rescue efforts was that the NYPD and the NY Fire Department had radios tuned to different frequencies and so were unable to communicate with one another. By the end, first responders were communicating through 911, the emergency phone number. By the way, is that fixed now? It ought to be gripping and it's not really. Two men trapped in the dark rubble, one PR and one WASP, and we pretty much know what they think and feel. Ditto for their families. What many would like to know is what's going on upstairs.
To Stone's credit, his narrative is straightforward, with no editorial razzle dazzle. Not a sign of self indulgence. And it seems like a genuine attempt at drama, not greedy cashing in on public interest in the events.
The two men are rescued and of course any viewer is glad. It was a catastrophe. And the catastrophe has deepened. It's sadder now than it was on 9/11. We've spent half again as many lives as were lost on 9/11 in the fruitless pursuit of some ill-defined vengeance. And a dozen times more Americans have been maimed. On 9/12, most of the newspapers across Europe and the rest of the world ran headlines like, "Today We Are All Americans." I doubt that sentiment still prevails. We've lost more than anyone could have predicted.