I will admit I only bought the dvd because I knew Cheyenne Jackson was in it and he had impressed me on stage in XANADU. I hadn't much interest in seeing it when it was released in 2006 but this afternoon I suddenly got an urge to watch it. It is possibly one of the most gruelling experiences I've ever had watching a film.
What I respect about the film is that it is presented totally without any attempt at sentimentality or hindsight, happening in real-time and although we know what happens, the passengers and ground crew react as one would in the moment. The passengers - despite conforming to cliche disaster movie roles such as The Old Married Couple, The Young Students, The Granny, The Man Who Knows How To Fly A Plane, etc. - are presented as anonymous, none are even identified during the course of the film which I think is a brave choice. Greengrass' use of little known actors - even to me! - works very well and his roaming camera-style and jumpy editing means they all hardly register during the 40 minute lead up to the actual hi-jacking.
The pace constantly keeps you on edge, with the scenes on the ground growing from surprise to disbelief to frantic action as air controllers and military watch their radar screens as planes don't respond to commands while going off-route until they see live CNN footage of the World Trade Centre then cutting to the quiet humming of the cabin with tiny details known to anyone who has done an internal flight - no one heeding the safety procedure (irony in itself), slight nods of acknowledgement as people catch another's eye, reading the morning paper, business paperwork being done, the bustling stewardesses preparing the breakfasts. The telling point is made too that the military were desperate to act but couldn't do it as they needed executive authority - Bush and Cheyney were both uncontactable.
The hijack when it happens erupts out of nowhere and the sudden violence is all the more shocking due to the cramped space, people stabbed in jerky sudden movements. Even here though, where lesser directors would now focus on the passengers as heroic good guys, the style remains fractured as passengers react with panic and fearful stoicism. The remarkable thing about the film is the way the four hijackers are portrayed - not as villains in the standard Hollywood way but as men fulfilling a mission they have set out upon - just after the hijacking there is intercutting between the prayers of the passengers with those of the terrorists flying the plane. Indeed the film opens with the hijackers reading the Koran and preparing in their anonymous hotel room for their mission, this then cuts to the daily routine of the ground staff at the airport - air and ground crews going through their procedures... just another working day.Greengrass' handling of the finale is I suspect where the film is most controversial. Several cable tv movies were made before UNITED 93 which lingered over the passengers using their mobiles and the air-phones to contact their families, usually with reaction shots from the loved ones they were calling. Here Greengrass shows the calls but again in the jittery style as before - we overhear phrases but nothing is lingered over, the magnitude and the futility of the calls is evident in itself. It is only when one of the passengers is told about the WTC that it dawns on them a similar fate awaits them and, realising they have a private aircraft pilot as well as a man familiar with aircraft landings amongst them, decide to attack the hijackers. The notion of fighting heroically for the safety of their country as has been retrospectively claimed doesn't come into it... they are fighting for survival, a much more human trait and one that holds no shame. Of course ultimately it's all conjecture as no one survived. That some passengers attacked the hijackers and made it to the cockpit is known from other passenger's calls as it was happening and the flight recorder.
The film actually gave me the queasy feeling I felt on that day and it's ending allows no relief or resolution and it took me quite a while to get over it. It's brutal honesty, excellent filmcraft, commited performances and overall vision makes it a film I will want to watch again. Finding the strength to do it is another thing altogether.
