United 93 Review
by samseescinema (sammeriam AT comcast DOT net)April 30th, 2006
United 93
reviewed by Sam Osborn of www.samseescinema.com
rating: 3.5 out of 4
Director: Paul Greengrass
Cast: Lewis Alsamari, JJ Johnson
Screenplay: Paul Greengrass
MPAA Classification: R (language, and some intense sequences of terror and violence)
Writer/Director Paul Greengrass has slid all his chips to the center of the table with United 93. Put simply, his career's on the line. This being his second big-budget American film (the first was The Bourne Supremacy), Greengrass still has something to prove. He approaches United 93 with realism and understatement in mind, attempting to shed away the layers of Hollywood glitz that would, if not carefully calibrated, exploit the victims' stories. His audience is touchy and indignant, still seething from the tragedy and the downward spiral of our Presidency ever since. If United 93 were to fall, it would fall hard, quickly becoming one of the most spat-upon films in recent history. But it's instead a success, and across the board the other critics and I are harmonizing in praise.
The story itself doesn't focus solely on the ill-fated flight of United Airlines 93, despite the title. Greengrass wants to first put the event in perspective. Half of the film's running length is spent witnessing the event unfold in the air traffic control towers and military bunkers, with blinking green radars and dozens frantic radio transmissions. The segments work to slide Flight 93's situation into context, widening the berth of United 93's sorrow and alerting us to the great wingspan of the attack in whole. Without these administrative segments, the flight would be a bubble of tragedy and a kind of an unnecessary parable. The second half of the film is spend inside the actual airplane and explaining the story would be redundant.
Greengrass made the choice to cast non-actors and sprinkle them among actual players from the 9/11 incident. Not only won't you recognize anyone here, but they might actually be those who experienced this film's event firsthand. And this is just one of the ploys Greengrass works to absorb us even deeper. To imagine the film would be to imagine not just reading the newspaper on September 12th, but for the newspaper to come to life before your eyes. This isn't Hollywood; this is a cinematic manifestation of a headline.
So in the same vein of using all non-actors, Greengrass makes the choice for absolute handheld camera work. He wants to achieve, put plainly, the look of a documentary. Whoever's filming this, we think, is right there, in the eye of the storm. This choice of style helps to avoids blatant sentimentality. We don't see Mary Mother Jane pouring orange juice for her three children and checking her boarding passes before kissing her husband goodbye. Greengrass' goal is to shave away the layers of cinematic superfluity. There's very little cinema to United 93. Its story laid bare and raw is strong enough without the veneer of Hollywood glowing through. And this is most severe and resplendently quaint in the final scenes, where the heroics of flight 93's passengers are told. There hasn't been such a quiet theatre as the lights went up and not a single word breathed as the full theatre filed out into the waiting lobby. Those final scenes are devastating; because, by then, we're convinced of United 93's reality. The characters have transcended into real, breathing people and their reactions have risen somehow above authenticity. So when the tragedy does finally occur, we're left imploded and ruined.
My one complaint with the film is that it sometimes dawdles inside its air traffic control towers. 90% of the material is necessary. The last tenth could be left on the editing room floor and not an iota of the film's effect lost. Consequently, United 93 sometimes runs around in circles, with one superfluous message being transmitted across four different towers, through military bunkers and back again. We sometimes hear the same phrase repeated more than a dozen times. But Greengrass has funny sense of pacing-a trait he showcased to unique effect in The Bourne Supremacy-and such thoroughness may be part of his package.
I've never had much patience for those who've waited on the sidelines screaming from the bottom of their breathers that it's too early for a film on 9/11. Here's my take: the tragedy holds dozens of supremely human tales. The question isn't whether or not the scab's being picked at, but whether or not a Director can give honesty to a portion of the event that gave us the scab in the first place. Paul Greengrass has just the moxy to bear-hug his portion of the 9/11 event and give it the humanity it deserves. This film is real and it's jarring and it's exhausting.
-www.samseescinema.com
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