Film Reviews

World Trade Center

• Rating:
• Director: Oliver Stone
• Starring: Maria Bello
• Details: US / 129 mins (12A).

There were two ways Oliver Stone could have tackled World Trade Center: a multi-character narrative weaving Crash-style through the various storylines of all involved, or simply personalise the harrowing experience by focusing on one person. Stone opted for the latter, and I'm not altogether sure it was a good idea. As a filmmaker, trapping your main characters under debris for half the movie doesn't really promote any high drama, and switching to the men's wives at home, worrying about their loved ones and giving us updates on what is happening, doesn't really solve your problems. In what started out as just another regular morning, Port Authority Sgt. John McLoughlin's (Cage) world gets turned upside down when two planes hit the towers. He and Will Jimeno (Pena) volunteer to help to evacuate the casualties and rush into the north tower. Tragically, the tower collapses and the would-be heroes are now defenceless victims trapped under rubble, trying to keep each other awake and talking during their ordeal. Acting from the neck up isn't the easiest role they've ever taken on but Cage and Pena must be given credit for keeping the emotion alive, humanising their characters and revealing a lot about themselves without ever getting too wordy. However, this gets a little long in the tooth after a while as the viewer is left wondering if this was the best story to tell. World Trade Center has being described by Cal Thomas, a newspaper columnist Stateside, as "one of the greatest pro-American, pro-family, pro-faith, pro-male, flag-waving, God Bless America films you'll ever see", but Stone, in fairness to him, keeps Hollywood sentimentality and the flag-wavers at bay for as long as he possibly can and there would be no way to shoot this film without some heartstrings being pulled. Subtlety, a word that Stone obviously hates, is given the heave-ho from the outset as every line is a wink and a nod to what is about to happen and the extent of it all. It's not that World Trade Center is a bad film - but there is a feeling that the definitive 9/11 film is still waiting to be made.

Review by Gavin Burke