Common Sense Note
Parents should know that this film isn't for younger kids. Upsetting and provocative, it raises sophisticated questions about the construction of history and uses of memory. The movie includes frequent cuts that create tension and link scenes in the jet and air traffic control, military, and the FAA centers. The hijackers betray nervousness but remain resolute in pursuing what they see as their destiny. Television images of the second plane hitting the WTC recall 9/11 as most viewers experienced it. The final assault by passengers on the hijackers is particularly grim and violent, with ragged images and blood splattering on a wall. Some strong language.
Families can discuss the uses of representing such tragedy and trauma: How do stories and images help us work through emotional wounds? How important is historical accuracy in a fictionalized feature film? How does the movie portray the hijackers, so that you see their nervousness and dedication, and not just cartoonish, one-dimensional "evil"? How do the many, mostly nameless passengers, appear heroic in ways that challenge movie conventions?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
Difficult and provocative, UNITED 93 doesn't pretend to figure out "what happened." Instead it offers what director Paul Greengrass calls a "possible truth," an experience that is at once abstract, visceral, and sometimes overwhelmingly immediate.
The movie begins in a motel room, where Ziad Jarrah (Khalid Abdalla), who will pilot United 93 prays. His voice carries over as you see his fellow hijackers-to-be shave, pack bags, and adjust their shirts (one hides a knife in his waistband). Their preparations set up their tensions, which accelerate once on board the jet in Newark, where they appear nervous and fidgety. At the same time, the flight crew (played by real pilots and flight attendants) and passengers go through routines so mundane they're almost painful to look at: bits of meaningless conversation, even the stowing of luggage, now seem precious.
In air traffic control towers, the chatter is typical, and at the FAA, newly installed Ben Sliney (who plays himself, and came back from retirement to manage the Federal Aviation Administration's operations command center in Herndon, Virginia on 11 September), sets to reorganizing the office.
When the first plane hits the World Trade Center, no one can imagine it's deliberate. As FAA officers and air traffic controllers do come to this realization, they're unable to communicate with the military, in turn unable to reach the administration. The film cuts to TV monitors showing CNN's coverage of the attack, with reporters repeating that they don't know what's going on. In reframing the event in and as TV image, the way so many people experienced it on 9/11, the film makes a devastating appeal to collective and individual memories. It also shapes those memories, framing them with Ben Sliney making decisions when no one else would (closing down all air space).
In its fitful remembering, United 93 raises important questions (however reverentially) about the making of history. Who decides "what happened"? What is omitted? And how does any one point of view prevail over another? In creating identifiable heroes -- say, Todd Beamer (played here by David Alan Basche) or Thomas E. Burnett (Christian Clemenson), names that have circulated in the ever-expanding history/mythology mix of 9/11 -- the movie leaves other participants less visible.
The effort to fight back, the desperation and the fear, are all too visible, in shards more than coherent images. Close-ups show frantic and determined faces, praying, calling loved ones, setting their jaws in determination to "do something." Though no one can know exactly "what happened," this reimagining allows viewers to think the best of United 93's heroes. Director Paul Greenrass met with family members to secure their blessing as well as their input, a point made clear when, following public consternation over the screening of United 93 trailers in New York City theaters, Universal speedily released another sort of ad to TV, with Greengrass explaining how he got the go-ahead and several family members asserting their accord with the timing and the film: "It tells a story," they say, "that needs to be told." This is no doubt true, though what that story is may be less clear. In this sense, it is like most history, not official, not even accurate, but essential.
Families who like this movie might also want to see Greengrass' Bloody Sunday or Antonia Byrd's Hamburg Cell.
Rate It!
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ViolenceCNN's footage of the WTC burning, and the second plane hitting the second tower, approximates characters' perspectives, at once horrifying and unbelievable (again); hijackers carry knives and fake bomb; throats/shoulders slashed, stabbing, and an assault by passengers on the hijackers that occurs mostly offscreen, but shows blood splatted on the wall from a skull crushed by a fire extinguisher; last images are harrowing, blurry and rushed and fragmented, until the plane crashes and the screen goes black. |
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LanguageLanguage escalates as the action, frustration, and dread build; includes "damn," f-words, s-words, and "hell." |
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Social BehaviorCrew members and passengers are smart and heroic. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoMention of drinks at start, during cabin service. |
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