UK Release: 29th September 2006
Oliver Stone uses all the tricks in the modern Hollywood film-maker’s book to convey the enormity of the attacks on New York, using disaster-movie effects and one breathtaking, digitally-created aerial shot.
With four times the budget of Paul Greengrass’s United 93, which dramatised the events of 11 September 2001 in a hand-held, documentary style, Stone’s film takes us deep into the rubble of the collapsed buildings, as two Port Authority cops (Michael Pena and an admirably subdued Nicolas Cage), await their rescue. Meanwhile, their wives, a tightly-wound Maggie Gyllenhaal and a stoic Maria Bello, play their own fraught waiting game as they watch the disaster unfold on television.
In focusing on the real-life experiences of the McLoughlin and Jimeno families the film switches from spectacle to close-up human drama — and sidesteps the politics. The outcome, though based on fact, might seem a bit contrived, and there are inevitable moments of sentimentality. But overall, Stone brings restraint to this portrayal of real-life heroism and fortitude in America’s darkest hour.
***
UK cinema certificate 12A
Running time 129mins
Review by Andrew Collins
Pocket Films Blog 