United 93 -- A Gripping Account

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United 93 arrived in theaters this April amidst protests and fears that the country wasn’t ready to relive the pain and the horror of what we have come to refer to as “9/11.” Several theaters yanked prints containing trailers of the film and much to the distress of this reviewer, others flat-out refused to show the completed film. After a stronger-than-expected opening, ticket sales for United 93 have steadily tapered off. Sadly but not completely surprising, fickle American moviegoers have shoved aside British director Paul Greengrass’s film in favor of the likes of such mid-brow yet anticipated blockbusters as The DaVinci Code and Poseidon. Quite simply, United 93 is both superior filmmaking and a celebration of the lives of the individuals who lost their lives that fateful day.

Featuring many of the actual air traffic controllers and military personnel who charted the course of the aircraft from their control towers, United 93 is a solemn and studied account of the heroic effort of thirty-seven passengers and four airline crew to derail the plot and the path of its Iraqi hijackers. The film’s use of low light, an almost anonymous yet astonishing cast, and its perfectly modest score convey the severity and the seriousness of the circumstances confronting the passengers and the world. The passangers’ collective act of valor prevented the hijackers from crashing the commercial plane into the capitol building, thus saving the lives of hundreds of U.S. citizens.

Told in real time, the 111-minute drama captures the mass frenzy that occupied the air traffic control rooms in New York City. The air traffic controllers, some of whom portray themselves in this film, watched in horror as two commercial airplanes flew into the World Trade Center. Those who watch this film will undoubtedly think back to what they were doing when they first learned of the disaster. Many Americans can still recall what they were doing when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and their ability to recount their activities at the moment they first learned of the attack on the World Trade Center is no different.

Ironically, the film’s clearest message might be that all of the individuals on United 93—the Iraqi hijackers and the passengers who feared them and their plot against America-- were people of God. Alternating scenes of Iraqi hijackers holding their hands together and saying Islamic prayers and American men, women, and children in very nearly the same posture and gestures saying Christian prayers as the plane and its passengers are heading towards a horrific end is perhaps the single most compelling image in American cinema this year. Such an image in the film begs not one but thousands of questions. One of which is what is it about America that prompted people of God to assume a terrorist position and to pray so fervently for its destruction? One hopes that American Christians who see the film will reject the common and more visceral reaction to seek revenge without first recognizing that the terrorists who they have been conditioned to believe are their enemies are first and foremost, people of God.

The brilliance of United 93 is that rises above the politics that have been used to support and discount the film. United 93 is insightful and balanced, painful and riveting, all in one. In all of its veracity, it pays homage to the passengers who bravely stopped their flight from its intended destination and to the country they fought so valiantly to protect. The film is a true depiction of the triumph of the human spirit that at its basic level is buoyed by religion—in all of its goodness and in all of its horrors. After watching United 93, we are in awe of the courage exhibited by the U.S. passengers and are left pondering the hard, heavy questions that religion and life pose for the citizens of the world, whose lives may have been changed forever by the events of September 11.

Grade: A

Movie News and Notes

The five highest grossing movies at the end of the Memorial Day weekend are as follows: X-Men 3, The DaVinci Code, Over the Hedge, Mission Impossible 3, and Poseidon.

Although opening to mixed reviews, X-Men 3: The Last Stand set box office records for the Memorial Day weekend, earning approximately $120.1 million over four days. The previous record for the weekend was set by Steven Spielberg’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park in 1997.

Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth earned an impressive $365,787, despite opening in just four New York City and Los Angeles theaters.

Spike Lee is directing When the Levees Broke, a documentary examining the U.S. government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. The television production will air sometime in 2006.

Milos Forman is directing Goya’s Ghost. The film depicts an account in which painter Francisco Goya finds himself in a scandal involving a woman who is labeled a heretic by a monk. Stellan Skarsgaard stars as Francisco Goya, and Javier Bardem is the monk.

David Fincher is set to direct Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Pitt plays a fifty-year-old man who ages backward when he falls in love with a thirty-year-old portrayed by Blanchett. The film is set to be released in 2007.

Poseidon Sails..... and Sinks

After several years of delayed production, Poseidon finally sails into theaters some thirty-four years after the original Poseidon Adventure hit movie screens. Based on the novel by Paul Gallico, Poseidon tells the story of a large cruise ship that literally turns upside down when it collides with a "rogue" (tidal) wave on New Year’s Eve, leaving a small group of passengers to fight for their survival. The earlier film featured an all-star cast that included Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Stella Stevens, Jack Albertson, Red Buttons, Roddy McDowall, Carol Lynley, and Shelly Winters in an Oscar-winning performance. By contrast, this production stars a hyper Josh Lucas; a weary-looking Kurt Russell; a shockingly silent Richard Dreyfuss; and a fresh-faced Emmy Rossum.

The remake is directed by Wolfgang Petersen, who in recent years has established himself as a first-rate filmmaker. His impressive list of films includes Das Boot, In the Line of Fire, The Perfect Storm, and Troy. These critically solid and financially successful efforts have catapulted Petersen to near A-list status among directors. Here, though, he suffers a bit of a setback due to some questionable casting, deficient plotting, and a script that lacks a theme and force. The script by Mark Protosevich fails to give any of the film’s characters anything compelling to say in the film’s 99-minute running time. And there is only scant mention of characters’ occupations at opportune moments in the script. These glaring faults prevent this highly-anticipated project from being the summer movie event we have grown accustomed to seeing from the German director.

This production will undoubtedly draw comparisons to the original. The earlier film’s cast was an intriguing mix of rising stars of the 1970s and established stars from the 1950s and 1960s. The original was by no means a great movie. It probably wasn’t even a very good one. But it was memorable. The characters had quirks and individual moments that remain ensconced in the minds of ardent movie fans. Unfortunately, the remake leaves us with no such memories. Its characters are merely props for the next carefully staged stunt and escape sequence. Poseidon delivers some pulsating scenes due largely to special effects services provided by Giant Killer Robots, Hydraulx, Industrial Light and Magic, Lola Visual Effects, MPC, The Moving Picture Company, and Irwin Allen Productions. And there are three moments of genuine tension: an early scene involving a burning elevator shaft and two characters clinging to the hands of two others, a dark and claustrophobic crawl through a flooding air vent, and an underwater swimming sequence that rivals that of the original.

This failed production has made me realize that James Cameron’s Titanic has redefined the big budget disaster movie. Despite its record-setting Oscar night, it, too, was flawed. The Titanic script, which Cameron also wrote, was posted on the Internet within days of the film’s release, downloaded, and picked apart ad nauseum by the art-house crowd. But his three-hour and nineteen-minute epic delivered both jaw-dropping special effects and characters who had experienced moments of truth and emotion. By the time those glorious special effects arrived, we had seen that film’s two primary characters find each other, lose each other, and find each other yet again. Titanic was a disaster film that not only captured the physical destruction of one of the greatest tragedies of all time but the huge personal stakes that made that disaster and many others the subject of our nightmares and the very things that prompt renewed dreams and visions. Poseidon, on the other hand, bustles forward with such attention to its computer-generated special effects and such disregard for the science of its disaster and the larger themes of life, love, and loss that one wonders how the direction of this once-promising project drifted so aimlessly out to sea.

Grade: C

Movie News and Notes

Despite Mission Impossible 3’s $40 million opening weekend, the film didn’t meet the expectations of some studio insiders. Some insiders are worried if the lower-than-expected gross is a sign of a slower summer.

Akeelah and the Bee has opened to surprisingly strong reviews across the country. The film stars Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne, and newcomer Keke Palmer.

United 93 opened reasonably well and to predominantly favorable reviews by the nation’s critics. It was directed by Paul Greengrass, the acclaimed directed of Bloody Sunday and The Bourne Supremacy.

Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center, an account of the last two firefighters to be rescued alive from the World Trade Center, is set to be released in August.

Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Anniston are set to star in The Break-Up. The film will be released June 2.

American Dreamz, the clever political and televison satire directed by Paul Weitz, opened to largely positive reviews but netted only lukewarm box office receipts.

The DaVinci Code, directed by Ron Howard, will open nationwide on Friday, March 19. Some sneak previews will be held on March 16-18.

Julianne Moore and David Duchovny will star in Trust the Man, directed by Bart Freundlich. Freundlich is Moore’s husband.

Edward Norton plays a magician in Neil Burger’s The Illusionist. The tale about a magician also stars Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biehl, and Rufus Sewell.

Ron Howard's daughter, Bryce Dallas Howard, will star with Paul Giamatti in M. Night Shymalan's Lady in the Water. The film is set to open on July 21.