There is
a good review of United 93 at Salon.com that might answer some of your questions. (You can get a free Day Pass by watching a short commercial.)
Amd of course, The Onion has
its own take on the subject.
This kind of movie isn't really my cup of tea. On the one hand, it's about a serious, real-life human "drama". On the other hand, unless a movie is actually a documentary, it has to dramatize events and put them on an artistic, well-defined canvas in order to be successful as a
movie. So right there, it has already departed from reality, no matter how faithful the moviemaker intends to be. If a film is to have any sense or any focus at all, it has to be an
interpretation of events. By choosing which moments he wants to put on display in his film, the filmmaker puts his own indelible mark on the film. Apparently, Paul Greengrass did a good job of telling the story. But in the end, it just isn't the kind of story I want to see in a movie: half real life, half dramatic invention, and with no real emotional reward, just too painful to really enjoy.
I've seen documentaries about the Titanic. While I was somewhat interested in the true story, I have to say that I enjoyed the fictionalized fluff of James Cameron's
Titanic even more. It was a great
story, set against the background of a gripping historical event. Seen as a "documentary", it would be a complete joke. But the same thing is true of other great movies, such as
Gladiator or
The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit. Should they not have been made, just because people have really died? If movies are supposed to avoid all reference to events in which people died horrible deaths, then I guess all movies need to remove all references to reality. I happen to like movies about Martians and Harry Potter, but if that's all I could ever watch, I think they would leave me wanting for more.
What about some of the other 9/11 movies that have already come out? There was a movie about Flight 93 on TV several months ago. And then there was
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore, and then there was a movie starring Timothy Bottoms whose sole purpose was to show how heroic President Bush supposedly was. Come to think of it, there has been a whole lot of career-making based on the events of 9/11. Those terrorist attacks have spawned so many books, arguments, and disastrous policies, I don't know where to start. And arguably, the reaction to 9/11 has caused a lot more deaths. Is a single movie that merely tries to show what might have happened really all that important?
