This may be the most important post in the year and a half year history of this site. Both because it is one of the first times I have been able to get to a movie before most of the rest of the online world, and because of the importance of what that movie is and what it represents. I was lucky enough to get an early look at Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, the first studio movie about the 9/11 attacks on New York City. I have yet to get a chance to see United 93, so this was the first film I have seen regarding the attacks. I am not one of those people who feel that it is too soon to make a movie like this, because I believe film should be relevant and thus a 9/11 movie now is really no different than Apocalypse Now or Deer Hunter being made during the Vietnam War. Having said that, I just could not bring myself to go see United 93, even though I was glad it was made and I was sure it would be good. I just couldn't bring myself to go sit through it.
It is with that precursor that I sat down to watch World Trade Center recently. What I saw was an amazing film with genuine emotion. A well acted ensemble piece that elicits emotion so easily that it doesn't even appear to be trying to. Oliver Stone has managed to make a movie about 9/11 that is not political, sappy, sensationalized, or played for shock value. Oliver Stone has made a beautifully simple movie about a handful of people and how the attacks on 9/11 changed their lives both for better and worse. It is a movie about togetherness, and perserverance, and about hope, and about how it sometimes takes a terrible tragedy to show how good people truly are at heart. Oliver Stone has done all these things and he has done them with the subtlety of a master filmmaker. Too often people think of Oliver Stone as an in your face conspiracy nut, when he really is one of modern films great directors. What he has done here should at the very last get him an Oscar nomination.
This is one of those movies where an ensemble cast all shine so bright that no one really stands out. Nicholas Cage, Michael Pena, and Jay Hernandez all play Port Authority cops stuck inside the fallen first tower. Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal play the wives of Cage and Pena's characters and William Mapother, Michael Shannon, Frank Whaley, and Stephen Dorff all play intrical parts to the film as well. Everyone here more than holds their own. Nick Cage reminds us here that when he is on, he is among the best in the business. I have often knocked Cage as a hit or miss actor, but when he hits, he hits homeruns. Pena, who has stormed onto the mainstream after a great turn in last years Crash, and Jay Hernandez play the other 2 trapped men. I have long been a fan of both of these immensely talented young actors and I am so glad to see them doing great work in important movies. Michael Shannon, whom I recognized only from his smallish role in 8 Mile, was great as well at a depth no one has really seen from him. What Crash did for Michael Pena, I expect this movie will do for Michael Shannon. The acting was across the board outstanding and never showy.
One of the real genius choices Oliver Stone made was to never actually show any of the carnage of the 9/11 attacks. The only time you ever see any shots of the planes hitting or the buildings falling are through news reports. In this way it gives you a certain comfort having already seen these images ad nauseum. This choice to not go for the sensational and instead be all about the characters was indeed a great choice. This is one of those true stories that just has to be told, and I am so grateful for having seen it told to me by a master filmmaker.
World Trade Center is a movie about the worst day in the history of this great country and yet this is an uplifting story about hope and about how humans are inherently good at heart and sometimes we forget that and need to be reminded. In that way this is not a movie to shy away from because of the subject matter, it is a movie to seek out and embrace because while it may be about the worst day in American history, it is also a story about the day people were proudest to be an American. That is the true genius of this extremely important film.
