Skip to main content

United 93 on DVD

Have you bought your copy yet?

United 93 is easily one of the best movies I've seen in a great many years. No, I am not overstating the case. It's excellent on all counts. Paul Greengrass hits one out of the ball park by suppressing his own political leanings (leftward, or so I have heard) and simply tells the story. I was impressed with what he did with the Bourne Supremacy, making a sequel that, in many ways, exceeds the original. And his Bloody Sunday is on a par with United 93; indeed, if I were Irish I might say it was better.

But I'm not. I'm an American and while I deeply honor the men and women who died in the World Trade Center, and I humbly respect and praise the firemen and policemen and others who died charging into those doomed towers, I am in awe of the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93. And Greengrass does 'em proud.

It's sort of what I was getting at with my bit on the Battle of Thermopylae. There you had a bunch of Spartans ready to die, but the real heroes of the moment were the Thespaians, true citizen-soldiers, not trained from childhood to fight and die, yet stand with the Spartans and fight and die they did.

On UA93, that's what 40 people did. The policemen and firemen who charged into the Trade Center towers faced life and death every day. Certainly they were heroes, but they were already heroes, just for doing the job. On UA93, it was the common citizen who stood up, looked evil in the eye, and said, "You go to hell!"

So maybe the passengers never made into onto the flight deck. Doesn't matter. They still stopped those bastards from using a fourth airliner as a guided missile, to destroy heaven knows what. God bless 'em.

I saw this film with my daughter when it was first at the theatre. Afterwards, we didn't talk much. She went out and got a "UA93" tattoo. She doesn't ever want to forget the sacrifice those people made.

Neither do I.

That easily colors my opinion of the film, but I think it stands on its own merits. Using little known actors and a great many people who were actually involved, Greengrass does a clear recreation of the horror that is and remains 9/11/2001. As said, he doesn't try and paint one patriotic picture or another, he just lets a powerful story unfold on the screen. By the last frame, you're left speechless. I can't think of a miscue in the entire film.

I've got my DVD but I'm rather afraid to watch it alone. It's a powerful experience, especially at the end. It demands to be a shared experience, because what happened that day was, indeed, shared by the world.

So, like I asked: Have you bought your copy yet?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Not the Hero We Deserve, But the Hero We Need

The Dark Knight is the best film I’ve seen in years. Not just the best “superhero” film, but the best film of any type. It’s not perfect, not quite a masterpiece, but it’s flaws are, to me, tiny and overwhelmed by the time the film ends. While relatively bloodless, it is consistently brutal, not just in what it depicts but in the themes that drive it. TDK is a film for adults, please leave the kids at home. Let’s deal with those “flaws” first, the largest being the character Rachel Dawes . In Batman Begins , I blamed Katie Holmes . Her acting was weak, to say the least, which is regrettable in that who she is and what she says and does are important to the film. Critics agreed and either for that or other reasons, Katie was replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal , who is a better actress. Yet here she’s weak, real weak. Maybe it’s the character, not the actress, which is frustrating because Rachel is a pivotal character. The film,...
1 comment
Read more

John Wick: Chapter 4

No sense in playing coy, this is a great film. I’ve seen it twice and while I don’t quite love it in the way I love the first, original John Wick , it’s my #2. It’s a little overlong, has some wasted space and time, has one absolutely pointless and useless character, and generally ignores the realities of firefights, falling, getting shot, hit, etc. All that notwithstanding, it’s a great action flick, has a genuine emotional core, and is well worth your time if you’re into that sort of thing. Like I am. Summary: John Wick (Keanu Reeves), last seen saying he was fed up with the High Table, goes to war to obtain his freedom. Some of the most incredible action scenes ever filmed ensue, culminating in a very satisfactory finale and a devastating post-credit scene. The first Wick film was a surprise hit. It was a simple, straight-forward tale of vengeance told in a simple, straight-forward manner. Where it stood out was its devotion to human stunt work, on exploiting long camera shots that ...
Post a Comment
Read more

We pause now for a minor rant…

“My car has a flat tire.” “You should buy a new car.” Every time I hear President Obama and other Democrats talking about “health care reform,” that’s what the conversation sounds like. A health care crisis is declared and the only solution is to replace the entire system. At most, around 15% of the American population is without health care insurance. Ignoring the fact that for most of them, this is a matter of choice, it also means that 85% are insured. And of that 85%, something like 70+% like their current coverage and don’t want the government to touch it. So for the vast majority, the current system works and works great. Yet, because of the minority for whom it allegedly does not...toss it all, start again. Admittedly, regardless of insurance coverage, it all costs too much, but again, the only accepted approach to controlling costs are to throw out everything and turn it all over to the government. Tactics that are proposed to address specific cost issues are not consid...
Post a Comment
Read more