Week Of April 17, 2006 - List Week - Mon / Wed / Fri

April 19, 2006

I feel a bit unkind in not seeing greatness in United 93.

There is no question that the film will be an emotional experience for audiences, though I suspect it will be more for Paul Greengrass' expert filmmaking than from the film's ability (or willingness) to dig into much of the deep emotion that so much a part of our emotional memory of 9/11.

Mr. Greengrass is quoted on the front page of the United 93 production information package: "There are lots of ways to find meaning in the events of 9/11. Television can convey events as they happen. A reporter can write history's rough first draft. Historians can widen the time frame and give us context… Filmmakers have a part to play, too, and I believe that sometimes, if you look clearly and unflinchingly at a single event, you can find in its shape something much larger than the event itself - the DNA of our times… Hence a film about United 93."

I agree completely.

And in that agreement that stokes my deep-seated sense that the film falls unfortunately short. If United 93 was, in fact, either clear in its telling or unflinching in its style, it might have been the film that would rip the still unhealed scab off 9/11, part of the healing process, but also a painful moment requiring examination.

As it is, you will be shaken and disturbed by United 93. It may force you to think about the day that 9/11 happened in a way you haven't in a while. But will you be left thinking about it in any deeper way after you walk out of the theater?

If the film offers any "bigger message," its that the horror of that day came out of a beautiful blue sky, out of the ordinary, out of our placid expectations of our own safety. But we soon lose that theme for the sake of what is basic docu-drama storytelling, done very well, but still not far off of what you might expect from The Discovery Channel… or certainly HBO.

Who were these people who died on United 93?

Well if you are really interested and you really want to feel something, read the press notes. Seeing the movie won't help you much, unless knowing that someone has a wife and is capable of an understandably painful call to loved ones is enough for you. I know that sounds terribly harsh, but that's all we really get from the film. We know more about the guy running one of the air traffic controlling rooms - though only one, the military one, has any clear context - than we do about anyone on the plane.

"When Don died, his son Charlie was ten years old. He said of his father, "It was better to have a wonderful dad for a short time than a bad dad even for a minute."

God. That is real. That is loss. My heart breaks for that kid as it rises with his show of bravery. And it's just one of the stories provided by Universal, apparently written by family members, in the materials for this film.

"Days before Rich returned to New Jersey to attend his grandmother's 100th birthday celebration (occurring on September 10, 2001), the construction of a new facility at the Humboldt Bay Natural Wildlife Refuge was completed under his supervision."

"The anecdotes of our relationship, her family, and her friendships are countless. A book of days could not contain them. The wonderful qualities that defined Debbie's extraordinary spirit are all a part of her friends and family forever."

"Terence's death took a lot out of Jane. She seemed to lose her devotion to her Catholic upbringing. The sweetness that had always defined Jane was now replaced by an edginess which, for the next couple of years at least, kept her at arms length from those who loved her."

These are just brief glimpses at just three more of the lives that were snuffed out that day in the name of a clash of faiths, religious, political, and other.

I don't know how these become a movie. I'm not saying that Paul Greengrass, who wrote and directed, failed by failing to include this kind of personal detail. But what I do feel is that I feel more real, long-lasting emotion reading these profiles than I do taking the rollercoaster ride of this movie.

The majority of the movie is spent not on the place or with those who were on it, but with air traffic controllers in Newark, Herndon, VA, and Boston, and Cleveland and the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) in upstate New York. This is an interesting idea, but it is a bit of a dramatic black hole, as most of what happens in each of those places is a form of impotency. In the hour or so between the first plane hitting the World Trade Center and the crash of United 93, the controllers and military really have no idea what is going on out there.

If anything, the confusion and inability to analyze or take action suggests that the infamous seven minutes of George Bush sitting in a school in Florida was truly meaningless. It was more than seven minutes between the first and the second plane hitting the WTC and in that time, not only didn't they sense a specific problem, even with concerns about hijackings floating in the ether, but their only action was to look for a missing plane that was out of radar contact… not to try to get it or any other plane on the ground.

But even more importantly, what does the action in the air traffic control have to do with the experience of the people on the plane? Nothing. Literally nothing. Neither the passengers nor the pilots nor the hijackers have any relationship, verbal or otherwise, with the air traffic controllers.

How do the air traffic controllers feel about the events of the day, after the WTC crashes? We don't know. It's not part of this movie.

Yes, I am interested in the guy who first realized that there was a hijacking on the first plane that hit the World Trade Center. But this movie is not about him, though he is an interesting and dynamic character in the four minutes or so we spend with him.

And I like the character of Ben Sliney… who is played by Ben Sliney. He runs the Herndon center that is the main air traffic control base. But his character, who traditionally drives the clock in movies like this, doesn't drive the clock here… since there isn't really a clock in this film, even though it is in real time. (Watching it, it seems a little stretched in the first act before settling into real time in the second act, but it says in the notes that the film is in real time, so…)

Speaking of casting… there is a weird quirk in the casting here. There are a half-dozen (perhaps a couple of more) well-known character actor faces sprinkled into the cast of pretty-much-unknown-actors and those playing themselves. These include Chip Zien, Rebecca Schull (Wings), David Rasche (Sledgehammer… with dark hair), Danny Dillon (also with uncharacteristic dark hair), Gregg Henry (DePalma's films) and Christian Clemenson, who I always cite as the editor in Broadcast News, but whose been on virtually every TV show and is currently on a run on Boston Legal.

As an avid moviegoer, I look to the faces I recognize in a large cast to offer something that stands out from the unknowns. Clemenson has probably the biggest role of any of the plane's passengers, but I found the familiar faces more distracting than anything else. I wish I knew what they were thinking, though it may be all too apparent… that the studio (or someone) wanted some familiar faces, even if movie stars were not in the spirit of the project.

By the time the movie starts wandering into a certain moral equivalency between the hijackers and the passengers, in a scene that cuts between each group praying, I was too bus considering the lack of subtext to get all worked up about whether that subtext was intentional. What did turn my head, however, was the sudden disappearance of subtitles for the hijackers in the last section of the film. What were they saying… to themselves and amongst themselves? I don't know. Maybe it was too complex to put on screen in an easy way. Maybe the likely words of prayer they were speaking, shown opposite the victims who were also about to die, was considered too equivocating. I don't know. But I would have been happier for the consistency.

Ultimately, United 93 leads to a dozen people fighting for their lives over about 12 minutes. Is there a message about the overall event? I don't see it. I think that an unflinching examination of the people on that plane might have held deep secrets, even untold. I think that the impotency of the men in the air traffic control rooms around America, especially those who are supposed to have control of our protective forces, might have offered great insights.

But all I see in United 93 is a beautifully made, well-acted, earnest, well-intended human horror show that brings an event in American history to life, though mostly as a guess. I don't feel like I walked away with any particular insight into the human condition or the subtext of that day or even the appreciation of those specific people who lost their lives. It's not a bad movie. But, United 93 left me starving for all the things it was not.

READER OF THE DAY: APRIL CAN writes: "Hi there Mr. David Poland. On your web site you write:

9. Keanu Reeves - He's a heavyweight action player. When Constantine, a not-as-popular-as-the-big-titles comic book movie opened to $29 million, he asserted his muscle. Even his weak deliveries open to about $9 million. Don't back him big on love stories… that's all I'm tryin' to say.

What I am particularly writing to you about is this part here: Don't back him big on love stories… that's all I'm tryin' to say.

What about the movie 'Something's Gotta Give'..starring Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Keanu Reeves, Amanda Peets and more....this was a Romantic Comedy and folks loved it.

According to IMDB

Opening weekend USA December 14, 2003 ...$16,064,723 (USA)

by December 28, 2003 ... $55,902,582 USA

by March 28, 2004 ..... $124,590,960 (USA)

and Not counting Foreign Sales

The Ladies Love Keanu Reeves, he's not only a handsome gentleman but very intriguing...

I just hate to see people putting this man's acting down, when an actor is only as good as his Director and Producer will let him be...Don't ya think?"

E Me: I can't think... Keanu and the ladies are making my head hurt...

Week Of April 17, 2006 - List Week - Mon / Wed / Fri