United 93 Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

United 93

United 93 is an absolutely brilliant film but I'll almost certainly never watch it again.

I can picture the HOLLYWOOD version of this story: Todd Beamer is played by Tom Cruise or someone like that. 'Let's Roll' is the poster's tagline (the poster, by the way, is a big plane only rather than black the sillhouette is red white and blue) and the last 15 minutes is an action film in which Beamer grabs the controls but cant pull out of the dive in time.

This is NOT Paul Greengrass' film.

United 93 is a deeply serious, utterly real reconstruction in almost real time of not just the events on flight 93 but those surrounding it in the various control rooms and in New York.

One of Greengrass' masterstrokes is to have many people, including Ben Sliney, who on his first day in a new job had to deal with a terrorist emergency and shut down the sky over the whole of the United States, play themselves. The cast, for the most part, use documented words. Much of the conversation the day was recorded and is quoted verbatim in the film, the conversations between the passengers and crew on 93 are largely improvised.

Every member of the cast is excellent and none are known faces. This aids the film immesurably as having one person you recognise would irrevocably pop the bubble, destroy the almost documentary authenticity Greengrass creates in the instatnt you go 'oh look, it's that guy from that thing'.

United 93 is a visceral, difficult experience, it's a film i reacted to physically. First is the nausea as the crew and passengers embark on 93 as if it's a normal day and the air traffic controllers around the US do their jobs, not knowing what you know.

Then came the tears. Twice. Well, I say twice. I cried first when the planes hit the twin towers (the original news footage is used again here and despite endless repeats it has lost none of its power) and I spent much of the last 15 minutes, beginning with the phone calls to loved ones made from 93 (and here enacted according to transcripts) and ending with a black screen wiping my eyes.

It's not entertaining, and shouldn't be. In time i think United 93 will stand alongside Schindler's List as one of cinema's best and most upsetting historical documents and it is a testament to how well Greengrass and his cast and crew have pulled off what seemed to me impossible at this stage that I never want to revisit this film.

superb

best film i have seen for a long time. had my attention from start to finish which is very hard to do. 5 stars for me.