World Trade Center (2006) PG-13

I finally took the time to watch Oliver Stone's (Platoon, W.) World Trade Center. This is a difficult film to review, because of the subject matter. However, I will not be shy. This film is based on the experiences of two police officers who were trapped after the collapse of tower one. The day started out just like any other for John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and Will Jemino (Michael Pena). But their lives are changed forever after they enter the Trade Center.

John leads a small group of men into tower one, including Will. They don't get a single save when the tower falls. Officer Pezzulo (Jay Hernandez), Will, and John survive. Pezzulo gets free, but while trying to help Will, the second tower collapses. He gets crushed and dies slowly. Half the film (almost an hour) is spent focusing in on Cage and Pena's faces. They make small talk and try to stay awake. Nothing they say feels real and it's all quite boring. The script is extremely weak.

Their wives Donna McLoughlin (Maria Bello) and Allison Jimeno (Maggie Gyllenhaal) spend the whole day fighting emotions as they wait for word on their husbands. Allison obsesses over the name of her unborn baby, and Donna has to keep her four kids at bay. The most interesting part of the film is former Marine Dave Karnes (the always fantastic, Michael Shannon). He puts his entire life on hold, and drives down to Manhattan to look for survivors. He felt compelled by God to get down to Ground Zero. He knows there is a war on the horizon. He and another Marine locate John and Will. I think we all know what's going to happen, but I won't spill the beans. With the title World Trade Center, I thought we were going to see the events of 9/11. Instead we get to see some men in the basement get crushed, and trapped. You take away the 9/11 aspect, and all you have is the film Buried, starring Ryan Reynolds.

The film needs another title. Maybe something along the lines of, "Trapped: An Amazing 9/11 Rescue Story." I was hoping to see a Crash-like film that gives us different vantage points of the events. Perhaps we follow a trader, a fireman, a politician, a policeman, a passenger aboard one of the planes, a tourist, a terrorist, etc. "Based on a true story," is overrated. It would at least give us a small taste of what these poor souls went through. I would've preferred a 3+ hour long film, to be completely honest. Something that takes this whole tragedy and puts it into perspective. Instead, they squeeze it into this tight little tale of survival. This film just needed more, a whole lot more. Perhaps such a film will be made some day. It's just odd. We never see a plane crash, we never see a building collapse, it's all quite boring.

World Trade Center does to 9/11, what Defiance did to the Holocaust. Basically what that means is that you have this large world changing event. And you find one little piece of it, and you turn it into this huge heroic, uplifting story. This story takes your eyes off of what's important. And instead of tackling the issues, they just take the easy way out. Stone takes advantage of our emotions and profits off of it. He turns one of the darkest days in American history and turns it into this uplifting story of survival. We all get this big happy ending. Guess what, there was no happy ending. How can you make a film about 9/11 (where people are jumping out of windows) and have a happy ending? It's simply preposterous. The whole thing is strangely unmoving. I knew there was a reason everyone thought a Hollywood version of 9/11 was a bad idea. There are good performances from Shannon (Revolutionary Road, Bug) and Bello (A History of Violence, Payback), but everyone else is just [blah]. Some simple archival footage or a documentary on the 9/11 attacks will suffice. I highly recommend United 93 (Directed by Paul Greengrass), a film that does everything right. This film subsequently does everything wrong.
C-