Movie review

"United 93" movie review.

This is a film that tells the story of United 93 on its last flight from when the plane's lights come on to when it is no longer in the air. The film feels more real than just about any other film. The film is remarkably well paced in its storytelling and editing. Everything is reasonable and believable. The drama is not over the top. There are no big name actors but the acting is excellent and clear.
There are many things this movie does, but the thing it does the best is compassion. We can imagine that we are the passengers, the pilots, the workers at all levels of control towers. Everything they do is something that we would do in that situation. We can feel the pain and frustration of limitations, restrictions, rules and mistakes when we want something to be done, and do all that we can to get it done but somehow it does not get done. We can feel the surprise of the evil plan succeed without us knowing what the plan is or why there is a plan, but we basically know that it is evil. We see the mistakes the terrorists make and why the terrorist are defeatable and preventable. Even though we don't want to, we can also imagine that we are one of the terrorists. There is one that waits and we can feel that he has second thoughts about the crashing into the white house--maybe because he will never see his family again--but even so, he is willing to die regardless. We are not told the reasons for his decision to die to attack someone else, but it is better without the reasons because we can see that it is wrong no matter what the reasons. Though, we want to be a peaceful people, we see when violence is necessary to protect the good.
This isn't just a movie to mourn, or grieve, or cry at. We all know where we were and what we were doing that day. This is what the passengers of United 93 were doing. They were trying to save themselves, they told their families they loved them, and they tried to take the plane back. They died fighting. That makes me proud.