World Trade Center
I saw Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center last night, and while it’s a good film, it’s not as gripping as the other 9/11 film, United 93.
I think part of the reason for this is that World Trade Center is conventional Hollywood fare (complete with starry cast), covering 9/11 as we know it and understand it to be. Regardless of where you were on 11 September 2001, chances are you were gripped to events on your TV screen, wondering what was going on; if people could survive the towers collapsing like that, and how our world was going to change. In World Trade Center we see a lot of this.
In United 93, by comparison, audiences are exposed to events that were not over-exposed on television - what actually happened on the hijacked flights. With that film, a real sense of foreboding hung over events, and the sense of disbelief and horror at what was happening was utterly convincing.
Granted World Trade is not as gung ho as I thought it was going to be – Stone does at least seem to realise that 9/11 is not a ‘story’ about heroes. Rather it is about the courage of survivors. So at least we aren’t subjected to Nicholas Cage in full-on hero mode.
Cage actually gives a decent performance, although it’s Michael Pena’s trapped officer and the always stunning Maggie Gyllenhaal as his desperate wife who add real emotional zing to the film.
So sure, World Trade Center is a powerful movie, and Stone makes amends for the bloated disaster that was Alexander. But the documentary-style United 93 remains for me, the best, and most emotionally affecting of the two 9/11 movies.
7 out of 10.
Comments
I haven't heard, seen or read any good reviews about this one, so I've decided to give it a miss. I will watch United 93 instead which the critics seem to be raving about. I'm pretty sure another (better) one of these 9/11 movies will pop-up in the near future.
WTC does look like a long winded Titantic-true-life-tragedy-im-so-sad-wannabe movie, about one of the greatest disasters of our generation.