I did something I normally don't do in going to see this movie on its opening weekend. I did so because I'd heard that a portion of the opening weekend box office would be donated to the United 93 Memorial. I'm glad I made the effort.However, I'm afraid I'm going to be the unwelcome skunk at the garden party in writing this review. While the movie is affecting, in that it made me cry and it made me rage once again in a couple of places, it was not as emotionally powerful overall as I had imagined it would be. I attribute this curious lack to the fact that director Paul Greengrass made his bones in the movie business making documentaries. In his commendable desire to not exploit the memories of the flight 93 heroes he relies heavily on documentary filmmaking techniques to render a straightforward account of the events of that day, and in my view, the dramatic elements suffer accordingly. Specifically, the early parts of the movie focus heavily on the unfolding drama in the control towers, Federal Aviation Administration headquarters, and the military's NORAD command, as it slowly, excruciatingly became clear that an attack was going on. While it is gob-smackingly stunning to see how clueless and unprepared the military was on that day, all the technical jargon being shouted among civilian and military air traffic controllers gets a bit thick. Given the nature of the job, I did come away from this movie wondering how much security improvement to America's air traffic control system is even possible, but that was hardly the point Greengrass was trying to make.
I would venture to guess that it is about the final half hour of the movie that focuses exclusively on the flight 93 passengers themselves. Greengrass made the choice to simply follow the narrative of events on 9/11/01, drawing primarily from the 9/11 Commission Report. Consequently, we the audience only know these people from our own personal knowledge of the history of that day. There is no exposition, no back story given that allows us to feel we can identify with the passengers, no voiceover narrative to fill in the blanks. While this unusual lack of exposition may in the long run serve to render the United 93 passengers as truly mythic heroes, abstracted from their personal histories, the immediate lack of the dramatic "hook" does diminish our emotional investment with them in the context of the movie itself. Combined with the disjointed narrative that precedes the actual revolt, the effect of the passenger anonymity caused me to feel a bit ghoulish as I watched, waiting for the inevitable end. That is not what the director intended I feel sure.One interesting thing I observed, and I suspect that this is the most true thing in the movie, is that as the flight 93 passengers quickly, desperately planned how to fight back, they were not concerned with saving the capitol, even though they knew by then that the country was under attack. They were simply calculating how they could survive. They had among them a former pilot and a former air traffic controller, and thus such a counterattack seemed a plausible possibility for survival. And isn't this the ultimate truth about heroes? That ordinary people thrust into extraordinary and unimaginable circumstances try the most desperate acts in order to try to outlive the events that trap them. Almost accidentally, and with several grown men reduced to frightened tears, the United 93 passengers rushed the cockpit. They died. And we who remain lay laurel wreaths on their graves, at least metaphorically.While director Greengrass goes too far, in my humble opinion, in sticking to the "official" 9/11 narrative, I do commend him for keeping any political agenda out of this movie. Early in the film you see the military caught flat-footed with the Commander in Chief incommunicado, but this is not presented with the usual invective Hollywood and the liberal press have slung at the current government since before 9/11. In fact, this movie does a lot to toss cold water on some of the nastier conspiracy theories out there on the net. We see that soldiers are after all ordinary people, subject to the same confusion as the rest of us. Sometimes in human affairs nobody is in control. That's a scary thought for most of us, hence the current popularity of conspiracy theory in general. By studiously avoiding the political elements in this story, by just focusing on the events as far as they are known, Greengrass has managed to capture that awful day in a way that comes as close to simple, historical truth as it's ever likely we'll get.
There has been a full-court press in the liberal media to depress the box office of this movie by the incessant whining that, "It's too soon for a 9/11 movie." I didn't hear that complaint in those same quarters when the mendacious, propagandistic Farenheit 911 came out. However, just to be thorough in this review: The amount of violence depicted here is less than you typically see in a crime drama on primetime television, although it is more affecting because you cannot forget that this violence really happened to real people. The terrorists here are presented without editorial comment, just as the passenger-victims are, but I found it interesting that their fanaticism is demonstrated almost entirely by their constant resort to prayer. They are obviously frightened by the prospect of what they are going to attempt, by their imminent death if they succeed, and so they ritualistically fortify themselves with their prayers. No one can fail to notice the contrast at the end when the passengers are heard saying the Our Father prayer just before they storm the cockpit. In its very understated way, United 93 says everything ordinary people need to know about the intellectuals' argument over the clash of civilizations. One group of young men prays for martyrdom and cuts throats casually. Another group, men and women, prays to live and thereby summons the courage to die fighting. The best reason I can give you to spend your money seeing United 93 is that it will disabuse you of the comfortable notion that 9/11/01 was just the opening episode of the terrorism-themed television program 24.
I desperately wanted to write a review that began with the instruction that it is the duty of every good American citizen-patriot to go and see United 93. I did not feel that way walking out of the theater. All of us alive on that day will remember it, each in our own way, just as my parents remembered Pearl Harbor. We were changed by those terrible events, perhaps in ways we ourselves will never comprehend. I cannot think of that day without remembering how I felt as I realized that all those dark, flaming objects raining down from the Towers before they collapsed were people leaping to the quickest death left to them. And I deeply resent the change in me that that memory represents. The events of 9/11/01 scarred us all, hardened us, brought us all into a closer relation to the killers who perpetrated those massacres. It's not a relationship any of us want, and underneath our surfaces, we all subliminally know that that relationship cannot be ended until a whole lot more killing has happened. That is an ugly truth that decent people don't want to face, but so long as there are millions of young men alive in this world whose only learning tells them it's a godly act to kill the infidels, who are steeled at the prospect of their own deaths by the promises of glorious martyrdom, ugly truth is all we have. For those of you who are parents, the idea that your children will have to learn about this for themselves in the future is beyond daunting, I'm sure. No work of art, no matter how accomplished, can salve the wounds created by this post-9/11 reality.
What United 93 does do is bring the events of that day back to a human scale. This movie does much to demythologize 9/11/01, which is itself a rather remarkable achievement. Honestly, I cannot say to you, "You must see this movie, as a badge of your patriotism." The people on that plane fought back against the terrorists that held them hostage simply because they wanted to live. It is we who live on that made them into heroes, mythic figures. Because we need heroes to emulate as we face the ugly truths of this world, today and tomorrow. See United 93 if you can bear to do so. It deserves to be seen. But take it from me, you aren't being cowardly or subversive if you choose not to see the movie. You cannot do more or better than to make your own choice.
Copyright © 5/1/06, Erin Iris Earth-child