I literally just walked in the door from seeing the new Oliver Stone movie, World Trade Center. Maybe I’d be better off giving it a night to soak in before writing a review but, since when has anything on here followed logic? Moving forward. I am far from an Oliver Stone fan, I haven’t really been impressed with anything he’s done since Wall Street. Sure JFK was well done and interesting but, it was also too preachy and too slanted. So when I heard he of all people was directing a movie about 9-11, I was learly at best. To his credit, he checked any opinions at the door and just told the story, of not so much the most horrific day in American history, but of courage and hope.
Let’s start from the beginning. The first three or so minutes we see New York City, and it was absolutely beautiful. Such great photography that the smell of popcorn was replaced with that of pretzels and exhaust. Man I miss those scents. And I give Stone a lot of credit for not showing the towers being hit. The shadow of a low flying plane against a building was much more haunting.
Most of the performances were solid to very good with Maggie Gyllenhall stepping her game up a notch. If she isn’t nominated for an Oscar I’ll be shocked. Nic Cage and Michael Pena deserve a lot of credit as well, most of their screen time is in the dark or literally the depths of hell. Being that they were both trapped under debris all we really have is their eyes and how they deliver the dialog. Far from easy, not that I’d know, but I’d imagine it’s pretty hard so lay off.
Of course it has a few areas that could have been stronger. At times it was a bit cheesy, mainly when either the trapped officers or their wives go into flashbacks. I understand there’s this love and sweet memories of their lives together. But jumping into a flashback is more what I’d expect from a made for television movie trying to tug at some strings. Personally, I believe it would have been more powerful to just watch the characters as they are remembering and how powerful the memories are. Have a little more faith in your actors.
Now as for the question, is it too soon? No, definitely not. I’m sure of this for one simple fact, if these people were ready to tell their story we should be ready to hear it. We owe it to them, and to ourselves. We haven’t forgotten how horrible it was, that’s easy to remember. We did, however, forget how it changed us. You hear Cage in the preview telling us how that day people, “were kind to each other for other reason then it was the right thing to do.” It wasn’t that way just in Manhattan. If you were driving down the highway and someone cut you off, you let it slide. Standing in line behind someone who fumbled through her pocketbook trying to locate her checkbook, didn’t fill you with resentment. Everyone wanted to know what they could do to help. Foods, clothes, money, donate blood or enlist. That’s what we forgot, and that’s what we needed to be reminded of. There’s a line in World Trade Center, that sadly they said while quoting GI Jane, “Pain is your friend, it lets you know you’re not dead.” So, watching this might hurt at times but that’s not a bad thing.
I wouldn’t give it the full HIRP stamp of approval but, a solid HIR.
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