World Trade Center (2006/Theatrical Film Review)

 

Stars: Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, Maria Bello, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon

Director: Oliver Stone

Critic's rating: 8 out of 10

 

Review by Chuck O'Leary

 

Oliver Stone has long been accused of putting his own spin on history in his movies (JFK and Nixon in particular), which is why some people were outraged when it was announced he'd be making a film about a still-fresh wound in recent American history entitled World Trade Center.

 

While calling a film World Trade Center when it only depicts a small portion of the horrific events that unfolded at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 does seem at least somewhat sensationalistic, even Stone's harshest critics will have little to complain about after seeing the movie since the controversial filmmaker thankfully keeps his own political leanings out of it, instead making a straightforward, non-editorializing docudrama about the heroism of a handful of ordinary Americans on our country's new day of infamy.

 

Coming off one of the biggest flops of his career, the costly Alexander (2004), which didn't quite work, but wasn't nearly as bad as many reviews indicated, Stone is back in top form with World Trade Center, his most significant film since the superb Nixon (1995). 

 

When asked my opinion after a screening of World Trade Center, I was momentarily at a loss for words, a testament to the film's potent impact.  Stone's latest ranks second only to the absolutely devastating United 93 as the most powerful and affecting film of 2006 to date.

 

World Trade Center is a respectful and restrained, but still very intense look at the events of 9/11 as experienced by two Port Authority Police Officers, John McLoughlin and William Jimeno, and their wives, Donna McLoughlin and Allison Jimeno.

 

In the film, the morning of 9/11/01 begins like any other day for both families, but all that changes shortly before 9 a.m. as word is received by the New York-New Jersey Port Authority police that a plane has crashed into one of the twin towers.  Led by respected veteran John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage), a group of Port Authority officers commandeer a public bus and rush to the scene.

 

As the officers arrive, they're stunned to see such a gaping hole in one of the buildings with the sounds of a hellish inferno raging inside.  Soon they observe poor souls trapped in the upper floors jumping from the building.  McLoughlin instinctively senses this is a catastrophe that surpasses anything they've ever experienced or trained for, and asks for volunteers among his men to follow him inside.  A young Port Authority cop named Will Jimeno (Michael Pena) is the first to volunteer.

 

Rumors begin to circulate among the officers about what's happening as they make their way through the lower levels and mall-type area of the towers.  They'll see surviving office workers in a semi state of shock being led from the building and hear the loud crashing sounds of people jumping to their deaths.  With just a few shots and sound effects, Stone gives the audience just a brief glimpse of the horrors of that morning without ever becoming exploitive.

 

When the first tower begins to collapse, McLoughlin and Jimeno are among a small group of Port Authority cops walking in an enclosed ground level section between the two towers.  McLoughlin yells, "Run," and heads in the vicinity of the elevators, knowing that area is probably the strongest part of the building.  Seconds later, McLoughlin and Jimeno are buried beneath tons of rubble, but within shouting distance of one another with a small area of light visible some 25 or 30 feet above them.  A third colleague survives the initial collapse, but doesn't survive the falling debris caused by the aftershock of the second tower collapsing.

 

As McLoughlin's wife (Maria Bello) and three children, and Jimeno's pregnant wife (Maggie Gyllenhaal) await news among family and friends for many agonizing hours, a trapped, injured and immobilized John and Will await rescue as John continually warns, "Don't fall asleep." 

 

Stone then cuts to somewhere in Middle America where a former Marine named Dave Karnes (Michael Shannon) prays in a church feeling a call from above to go and help.  And go and help is exactly what Karnes did, dropping all obligations of his regular job and traveling to the wreckage at Ground Zero in hopes of finding trapped survivors.  The stalwart Karnes speaks of God and avenging this tragedy, and Stone's heroic portrayal of such a devout Christian man is refreshing.  It's almost as if Stone is saying brave, self-sacrificing Christian men like Karnes are exactly what America will need in its coming war with Islamo-Fascist fanatics.

 

We also meet a former paramedic named Chuck Sereika (Frank Whaley), fired because of a drug problem, who volunteers to help alongside professional rescue workers like Scott Strauss (Stephen Dorff), who'll burrow beneath the wreckage with the Jaws of Life in an attempt to free McLaughlin and Jimeno.  And then there's a group of cops who travel all the way from Sheboygan, Wisconsin to Ground Zero to offer help in anyway they can because they can't stand the fact that those bastards hurt so many of their fellow Americans.

 

In other words, in an age where so many agenda-driven filmmakers look to demonize America, Stone's film sets out to celebrate the goodness inherent in so many Americans, and how just five short years ago, we were briefly unified and galvanized like no other time since World War II.

 

World Trade Center is done with such conviction and packs such an emotional wallop that it seems almost trivial to mention its only flaw: The fake blue eyes given to the naturally brown-eyed Maria Bello are so unnatural looking that it distracts from nearly every scene she's in.