United 93, the film (news feature and review)

Published in The Post-Star

5/7/06

The silence in the darkened theater was broken only by sniffles as the credits began to roll.

About 40 people spent Saturday afternoon watching "United 93," the newly released feature film based on the painful reality of 9/11. It opened in select theaters nationwide last weekend and at Regal Cinemas in Wilton Mall on Friday.

While going to the movies is usually considered entertainment, most of the people entering the theater for "United 93" looked more like they were going to a funeral.

"I'm kind of skeptical that I want to see it," admitted Margaret Spiezio, a senior citizen from Schuylerville who sat in the back row. "But those people were real heroes, and I'm proud to witness that."

There were no previews or funny commercials beforehand -- for the first few moments, viewers see only a black screen, accompanied the sound of a softly chanted prayer to Allah. The next few scenes convey the sense of eerie calm that precedes a terrible storm.

Much of the two-hour film takes place on the ground, and it unfolds in real time as air traffic control and military command centers begin to comprehend the scope of the crisis that is unfolding on their radar screens.

Communication between agencies is frustratingly slow and inefficient; as the film's epilogue points out, the military's air defense team was not even notified that United 93 had been hijacked until four minutes after the flight crashed.

"Four and a half years later, you look back at some of this and think, 'How could they have not put the pieces together sooner?'" Scott Thomer reflected after watching the movie for the first time. "But of course, it's always easier to see things clearly when you're looking back."

Thomer choked up as the credits revealed a roster of the 44 people killed on United 93.

"I think it shows the character of Americans in general. ...we don't just sit by and let things happen. We take action," he said. "Those people knew they were going to die, but they didn't let their deaths be wasted."

Paul Greengrass wrote and directed the movie. using details from the cockpit voice recordings and transcripts of phone calls placed by passengers on the doomed flight.

As she waited for the film to start, Hadley resident Tamara Delsignore was nonchalant.

"I just came because I heard it was good," she said with a shrug.

Afterwards, she was visibly shaken.

"It does a really good job of showing how scary and confusing it was for that day," she said. "And it makes you think about how important it is to tell your loved ones that you love them."

Spiezio was thinking about her oldest son as she left the theater. He was on a plane from Boston to New York the morning of 9/11, and the film reminded her of the fear she felt that day before learning he had landed safely.

"It was difficult to watch," she said. "But I'm glad I saw it."

Universal Pictures will donate 10 percent of the film's profits to a memorial fund for the victims of United 93.

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REVIEW: Published in The Post-Star (G6)
5/11/06


United 93 (2006). Written and directed by Paul Greengrass. Starring JJ Johnson, Polly Adams, Cheyenne Jackson, Opal Alladin, Starla Benford, Trish Gates, Nancy McDoniel and David Alan Basche. 111 minutes. Rated R (for language and some intense sequences of terror and violence).

A heavy knot of dread formed in the pit of my stomach during the opening scene of this movie, moving up to a lump in my throat by the end. It wasn't because of a particularly powerful line in the script, or a moment when the music swelled to cue emotional intensity.

It was simply because knowing the inevitable, awful ending of this 9/11-based film from the
start made the experience feel like watching an innocent prisoner march down Death Row in slow motion.

While the flight crew gossips as they prepare the plane for boarding, the soon-to-be hijackers mutter their final prayers and goodbyes, having ritually prepared themselves for death.

After the flight takes off, passengers sip their coffee and read The New York Times, unaware they will be the next day's headlines. There's something particularly painful about watching them deliberate over things like omelettes and orange juice as the hijackers are deliberating over the right moment to start the bloodbath.

The narrative unfolds in real time, flashing between the flight itself and events on the ground, where air traffic controllers and military commanders are lurching into action like a baffled bear whose hibernation has been interrupted.

Writer/director Paul Greengrass used the cockpit voice recordings and about two dozen phone calls placed by passengers in the flight's final minutes to reconstruct the actual events of that day with the precision of a documentarian.

He seems to recognize that the raw material of reality is strong enough to move audiences on its own, and he avoids squeezing the life out of naturally dramatic moments. Even when passenger Todd Beamer utters the famous line, "Let's roll!" it is dropped casually into a longer phrase, and seems more like conversational debris than the future title of a best-selling book.

Viewers are reminded that although the victims of United 93 have since been hailed as heroes for preventing their plane from reaching its intended target -- the U.S. Capitol Building -- they were also ordinary humans. They had no script to guide them through the terror of that morning. All they had were their brains, their bodies and a shared sense of purpose.

Some people have questioned the worth of a movie that profits from a still-fresh national tragedy, but the film's official Web site (www.united93movie.com) notes that Universal Studios will donate 10 percent of the film's earnings to a memorial fund for the victims of United 93. And perhaps the director's statement explains it best:

"The 40 passengers and crew on board Flight 93 were the first to inhabit our new and terrifying post-9/11 world. The terrible dilemma those passengers faced is the same we have been struggling with ever since," Greengrass writes. "Do we sit passively and hope this all turns out OK? Or do we fight back and strike at them before they strike at us? And what will happen if we do?"
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