It took Hollywood a while to come up with a strategy about how to handle 9/11. There were stories to be told and heroes to be celebrated, but it seemed like no-one wanted to be first in doing so. God forbid you’d be accused of commercially exploiting the largest ever terrorist attack on the USA. Director and writer Paul Greengrass found the perfect way to avoid that. Not only did he donate part of the movie’s earnings, he also found exactly the right cinematographic style to depict the events of that day.

United 93 is a real time account of what happened to United Airlines flight 93. We see a detailed reconstruction of what went on inside the plane, as well as in civil and military flight control centers. Greengrass fills in the blanks between what is known from cell phone conversations, the flight recorder and flight control data. And he does so without adding anything to the drama. No narration, hardly any music and no cinematic tricks. This is the kind of story that needs nothing to be added.

The acting is all very natural, which makes sense as many of the actors are actual flight attendants, pilots and ATC personnel. The only actor I recognized was David Rasche, but he had only a minor role. Not that there really were lead characters. With this no-frills style and lack of action hero actors you might get the impression that United 93 is a dull movie, but it’s been a long time since I had palms this sweaty after seeing a movie. Even though everyone on the entire planet knows the outcome, United 93 is ‘seriously exciting’. It provides you as much insight as a movie can into what it must be like to see planes crash into the New York WTC or be in a hijacked plane which you know will do something similar.

What struck em most about the story was how utterly unprepared the authorities were for an attack of the type and scale. The military is extreme slow to respond and communication between the parties involved is troublesome. United 93 had been off the ground for no more than 5 minutes when the first plane hit the WTC and flew on for more than 75 minutes before crashing. This movie makes it all the clearer that if the military had responded quickly they could have intercepted this airplane. Not that the outcome would have been much different I guess.

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