World Trade Center
I have mixed feelings about this
movie
We saw it on opening night here in Houston. Crowd
wasn't too large: understandable, because few folks - especially the teenagers
and pre-teens who flock to our local theater - want to see something
painful.
And painful it was to watch, but tolerably so. This was not an exploitive film; i.e., it doesn't exploit your emotions, the subject, or the characters. As Oliver Stone says, it "honors" the characters and story. It's an interesting choice, to focus on these 2 trapped Port Authority police officers, as a micro-examination of all that happened on 9/11. Actually, the focus is on 4 people -- the wife's characters and reactions are given equal time. And, I must commend the actresses; they performed excellently and very, very believably. I especially liked Maggie Gyllenhaal's performance. As for Nicholas Cage, which was the draw for Connie to see this movie (yes, one of our favorite actors), well, he spends 90% of the movie buried in rubble, so how you see is his face. A very constrained performance.
The movie is excellently filmed, and the story tightly told. New characters enter the story, not at the beginning, ala 70s style movies, but as they're needed, with but a minimum of character development. Yet it works. The pastor/former Marine, who dons his uniform as as way to sneak onto the disaster site, is the most interesting of these characters. I think it's telling that movie audiences (from what I read) assumed this character was a Hollywood invention, not a true person. But, true he was, Marine and American to the core.
Yet, I still have mixed feelings about this movie. Why this story, out of all the possible stories that day? Maybe, though, its the most appropriate -- Oliver Stone focuses on a very personal story as a way to focus on the whole disaster, and America's first response to it. No politics, just emotion and true American volunteerism.
And painful it was to watch, but tolerably so. This was not an exploitive film; i.e., it doesn't exploit your emotions, the subject, or the characters. As Oliver Stone says, it "honors" the characters and story. It's an interesting choice, to focus on these 2 trapped Port Authority police officers, as a micro-examination of all that happened on 9/11. Actually, the focus is on 4 people -- the wife's characters and reactions are given equal time. And, I must commend the actresses; they performed excellently and very, very believably. I especially liked Maggie Gyllenhaal's performance. As for Nicholas Cage, which was the draw for Connie to see this movie (yes, one of our favorite actors), well, he spends 90% of the movie buried in rubble, so how you see is his face. A very constrained performance.
The movie is excellently filmed, and the story tightly told. New characters enter the story, not at the beginning, ala 70s style movies, but as they're needed, with but a minimum of character development. Yet it works. The pastor/former Marine, who dons his uniform as as way to sneak onto the disaster site, is the most interesting of these characters. I think it's telling that movie audiences (from what I read) assumed this character was a Hollywood invention, not a true person. But, true he was, Marine and American to the core.
Yet, I still have mixed feelings about this movie. Why this story, out of all the possible stories that day? Maybe, though, its the most appropriate -- Oliver Stone focuses on a very personal story as a way to focus on the whole disaster, and America's first response to it. No politics, just emotion and true American volunteerism.
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Posted: Sat - August 12, 2006 at 09:26 AM
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Published On: Aug 14, 2006 09:46 AM
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Published On: Aug 14, 2006 09:46 AM