Filmmakers tread on sacred ground when they take on the subject of Sept. 11, 2001. The scrutiny on such a movie is inevitably going to be of a higher standard than with your average Will Ferrell picture.
It might have been a mistake to title Oliver Stone’s new film simply “World Trade Center.” That’s a rather grand title for a very narrow plot. But otherwise, this film plays fair by the conventions of the Hollywood inspirational story, and doesn’t vulgarize an important day in U.S. history.
The movie succeeds in part because it focuses on one specific incident from Sept. 11. This is the remarkable tale of two Port Authority policemen, John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno, who were part of the first response team that answered the alarms at the World Trade Center that morning.
Unbelievably, they survived the collapse by jumping into an elevator shaft at ground level. Then they had to wait for help to come.
The film is excellent and eerie in its early reels at depicting a street-level view of the morning. Even the gorgeous, quiet shots of Manhattan waking at dawn are stirring – we know what’s coming, but the city doesn’t.
A sequence in which McLoughlin (played by Nicolas Cage) and Jimeno (Michael Pena) and their crew are walking in the concourse of the WTC, carefully collecting oxygen tanks and preparing to go up into the tower, has the slowed-down terror of something happening in real time. Utter chaos is happening around these guys, but they have a job to do, they’re professionals, and they can’t panic.
For the final two-thirds of the film, McLoughlin and Jimeno are trapped in rubble while rescuers search and their families wait. Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal play the wives of the trapped men. It’s a tricky storytelling situation, and the movie stumbles in providing generic flashbacks for the characters – as though the situation at hand weren’t compelling enough.
It’s more conventional than one would expect from Oliver Stone. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing; Stone is able to bring his trademark passion and violence, without losing artistic control, as he has in his last few pictures.
The unusual character of a renegade Marine, played by Michael Shannon, seems to have captured Stone’s imagination. This man wandered into the Ground Zero area and took it upon himself to search for survivors, despite having no official job there. Like a number of plot strands, it’s difficult to believe this character is real, but apparently he is.
Given Stone’s rather unfair reputation as a conspiracy nut (“JFK” has had a long shadow), there were fears that “World Trade Center” might delve into theories and rumors about Sept. 11. It does not. The film focuses on its particular human crisis, and that’s it.
Coming shortly after “United 93,” this movie makes an interesting comparison. That film shunned melodrama in favor of a stripped-down, quasi-documentary style. It was incredibly effective. “World Trade Center” goes the melodramatic direction – and yet, because of Stone’s skill and the forceful pull of the story, it doesn’t go stale. The film doesn’t try to be the last word on the subject, and that’s why it works.
“World Trade Center” ***
One story: Despite the title, Oliver Stone’s film is actually one story of Sept. 11, 2001: The unbelievable saga of two Port Authority police officers (Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena) who survived the collapse of the towers in an elevator shaft. A more conventional movie than we expect from Stone, but it works anyway.
Rated: PG-13 rating is for violence, language, subject matter
Now showing: Alderwood Mall, Everett Stadium, Galaxy Monroe, Marysville, Mountlake, Stanwood, Neptune, Oak Tree, Pacific Place, Woodinville, Cascade
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