Got out to see a matinee of United 93 this afternoon with Mrs. Wiz. Unfortunately, the hand-held camera shots, especially those inside the plane, gave her motion-sickness, and she couldn't watch much of the second half of ther movie. The best I can say is that it wasn't as hard on her as Twister, which virtually paralyzed her for hours. And she wasn't the only one with an upset stomach. The knot in my gut started with the opening scene, and it never left. No review here, just a comment or two. Links to real reviewers follow.
This is not a film you can walk out of and decide whether or not you "liked" it. How can you "like" a meticulously detailed recreation of real, live historical terror, blood and murder? It is unsettling. It is numbing. It is horrifying. It is unsatisfying. It is irritating. I recommend it highly.
The filmmakers refrain from doing much in the way of character development, and United 93 is devoid of political content. There are no explicit Hollywood "messages", as several reviewers have pointed out. By necessity, some of what happened on the plane is fictionalized, but so much of what went on on the ground, in air traffic control towers, at NORAD, and on television news, is on the historical record, that the film feels much more like documentary than dramatization.
I have read comments from some people who say that the film reminds us that we are in fact at war. I need no convincing on that point, but United 93 did not say that to me. The film does acknowledge that the four hijackers on board the airplane were in league with the hijackers on the other three planes. But it doesn't go beyond that to suggest a worldwide Islamist jihad against America. The term "al Qaeda" and the name "Osama" never come up. Instead, we get a lot of the things you might expect to see on a doomed U.S. airliner. Normal people saying telephone goodbyes to families. Bravery and fear. Tears and prayer. Hope and ingenuity. Chaos.
Go see it. It's not too soon.
Reviews and commentary on United 93:
Posted by dan at April 30, 2006 9:11 AM