There was a wrong way and a right way to make this movie. This was done the right way.

As far as the technical aspects of filming go–there was very little “drama” injected into the direction. The music was very low key until key events took place (the collision of each aircraft with each tower, the explosion of 77 at the Pentagon, etc.). And there was ambient noise in every scene, so you felt like you were literally huddled amongst the hijackers, the FAA, NORAD, each flight center, and the United 93 passengers. This ambient noise was the key to not overdramatizing the movie and turning it into James Cameron’s Titanic.

And make no mistake about it, this was a movie about 9/11–not just a movie about Flight 93. It just so happened that the heroic action of those passengers rising up against their Islamist terrorists was one of the only shining points on that horrible day.

The main character in this movie is information–how it flowed, where it stalled, who had it on time, and who had it too late.

It’s a very strange thing to watch a movie where you know the outcome before the characters do and it was different from Titanic or Schindler’s List because it was not character driven–it was event driven and we as audience watchers already knew the major events. This movie does an excellent job of filling in the background events, the small chains of happenings that led up to the big events and, of course; it clearly demonstrates the breakdown of the United States disaster response system despite the best efforts of very talented and patriotic individuals.

This is much closer to a documentary than a dramatic film, without any narrative despite the occasional text overlay to set the place of scenes unfolding.

I was unaware of how many emotions I still had sublimated about that day but they came out through the course of this movie and twice I was seized with tears. Frustration. Rage. Sadness. It was all still right there. Close. I had buried these things deep down because the effect they had on me was similar to Anakin Skywalker at the end of Star Wars Episode III.

I was happy to see that Muslim’s blood spilled on the wall of the cockpit as the heroes of Flight 93 overtook him and ended his miserable god-filled life of hatred. But perhaps, almost five years is enough time to bring these feelings back out in the open, examine them, and accept them.

This week, JD said something to the effect that he couldn’t believe that people still deny that we are at war with Islam because they are most certainly at war with us. This movie will help put that back into perspective.

There is nothing insulting about this movie. There is nothing commercially cheap and it was not “too early” for it to be made and viewed as some claim.

On the contrary, this movie is a valuable piece of Americana and despite some “filling in of the gaps” it comes across as an accurate representation of all the events that happened that day, the failures of the system to recognize and respond to them, and should serve to crystallize exactly why we are fighting the war we are currently engaged in–because it was thrust upon us.

And like all modern tragedy–the movie begins and ends with prayer for God to grant victory over enemies.

I highly recommend that each of my readers see this movie and feel free to leave their reactions in the comment section or track back to this post in thier own blogs.

LINKS:
JD’s Post
Annika’s Journal on United 93
Blather Review on United 93
Alexandra on Why She Won’t See United 93

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