Universal Pictures, 2006 Directed by: Paul Greengrass
The picture begins immediately without the usual trailers. The first scene starts with the terrorists praying in a motel room. There is a window in the background and you can see the Twin Towers touching the New York skyline once more. Right away it hits you that this it not your usual Friday evening entertainment. You know what happened that day, but this time you are there, and your emotions run the full gamut.
The event is reconstructed and presented by a cast of relative unknowns. There are actually three stories presented intertwined, the story of what happened on the plane itself, the story of the civilian aircontrollers, & the story of the military response/non-response. All three stories told in ‘real time’ sequence with on-going scenes of the Twin Towers as a ominous backdrop.
As the events on the plane are coming down to a predictable climax, you find yourself rooting for the passengers to pull it off this time. In the final moments, there is a juxtaposition of passengers praying ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ in English and the terrorists chanting Islamic prayers in Arabic. At the end, there is blackness on the screen, for what seems forever, & deafening silence in the theater. As you leave the theater, it hits you how much the world has really changed since 9/11/01.
MGD