United 93, a.k.a. Feel Good Hit of the Spring

On Tuesday evening, Seattlest saw United 93 so you don't have to. Because really, who in the hell is eager to watch this particular film? Even with free admission, the theater was pretty empty.

That's not to say it's poorly made. In fact, we liked the movie's documentary style---hand-held cameras, filmed in real-time (or close to it), busy shots with characters out of focus---as it really added to the "what's happening?" confused feel. Another good idea was having "real" people in the film: flight attendants playing flight attendants, FAA honcho Ben Sliney as himself, and small-bit actors comprising most of 93's passengers. That choice of realism in casting is much preferable to what we'll see come August in Oliver Stone's World Trade Center. Somebody help Nicolas Cage, he's trapped at Ground Zero!

Still, this movie is brutal to watch, and not just because the audience goes into it knowing something the characters don't...namely, that they're doomed. Before that sense of dread can occur, you have to make it through the first forty-five minutes or so, which absolutely drags. Here's people at the Newark airport, waiting in lines, at the gate on their cell phones, sitting on the runway for half an hour because there's fourteen flights scheduled to take off ahead of them. Christ on a stick! We don't like to experience typical airport bullshit firsthand, let alone have to watch other people deal with the annoyances of air travel. Once the plot gets going (and by "gets going," we mean "terrorists take over the plane"), it's certainly more compelling to watch, but by no means enjoyable. In some ways, we found the drama on the ground---the miscommunication between the FAA, the military, and various other governmental agencies---to be the film's real eye-opener.

Writer/director Paul Greengrass has crafted a mostly apolitical film on a very political subject. Not everyone thinks this is a good thing, but we'd rather a filmmaker err on the side of just facts, no opinion, instead of U-S-A! U-S-A! grandstanding. There is, however, one major misfire, and that's in the characterization of a passenger: a European man of indeterminate accent (Dutch perhaps?), who just happens to be the only person on the plane to think everyone should cooperate with the terrorists, even going so far as trying to warn the terrorists of the passengers' impending coup. That's just wrong.

Overall, we wouldn't wish this film experience on anyone---not even Sean Hannity, though he would probably enjoy it. From here on out, Hollywood, let's stick to a tried and true formula, and keep our airline dramas fictional and full of snakes.