United 93 [a good review]

Bottom line: Unflinching account of the terror aboard the fourth hijacked plane on Sept. 11 provokes deep, disturbing emotions.

Press notes for motion pictures are usually filled with dispensable, self-congratulatory puffery, but the one for the soul-searing film "United 93" contains this trenchant comment from its English writer-director, Paul Greengrass: Speaking of the 40 individuals aboard United Airlines Flight 93, the fourth hijacked plane on that day of infamy, Sept. 11, 2001, he notes that these were the only passengers and crew members on any of those ill-fated flights who knew about the other planes having been used as weapons and realized what was happening to them. "They were the first people to inhabit the post-9/11 world," Greengrass says. These were the first to react to the worldwide conflict we find ourselves in today. Within the microcosm of that reaction, Greengrass has made an emphatic political document, a movie about defiance against tyranny and terrorism.

During these breathless moments, Greengrass cuts away to the desperation and confusion in airport control towers, the FAA's overwhelmed operations command center in Herndon, Va., and the military's unprepared operations center at the Northeast Air Defense Sector in upstate New York. For all their monitors and electronic equipment, there is a horrific, low-tech moment when controllers at Newark Airport get a perfect view across the Hudson of the second plane hitting a World Trade Center tower. No one can even speak.

In years to come, United 93 may enter our mythology in ways unimaginable. But for now, we have a starting point. "United 93" is a sincere attempt to pull together the known facts and guesses at the emotional truths as best anyone can. Then, in the movie's final moments, the impact of the heroism aboard United 93 becomes startlingly clear.

Actually, I thought they would change them to Eastern European terrorists as they are the most common terrorists Hollywood seems to use (Which of course begs the question as to how many Americans have actually been threatened or killed by Eastern European terrorists versus Muslim terrorists) In fact, I can't remember a single movie since Arnold's "True Lies" that actually had Muslim terrorists;

Hollywood's politically correct casting also manages to ruin almost every suspense movie since in the end you know that pretty much EVERY time the chief villain in these movies is going to be a white male businessman or politician; Further, women and particularly minorities are disproportionately cast in positions of authority and are virtually all on the side of rightgeousness; Also, only rarely do you see a bit city street crime in a Hollywood movie committed by someone who is black (and if you do, he always has to have a white criminal co-conspirator with him);

Political Correctness is like a cult among the Leftists who run Hollywood...

joesnuffy wrote: "WOW a Whorlywood movie where the bad guys are actually Muslims?...."

Much of MSM and the left has a fetish about making the victims of terror and/or criminal lawlessness morally equivalent. It is considered suave and sophisticated to be "considerate" of the "feelings" of Radical Islamists, Palestinians, pedophiles, murderers, take your pick.

What brings to mind the utter foolishness of this moral equivalence is the excellent movie, United 93, I saw tonight. I'm sure the plot line needs no introduction here. If it does, write me.

Most citizens of countries that have made themselves great through allowing people to make something of themselves, regardless of class of birth, religion, and race, and that allow maximum freedoms of thought and association, are the great societies. People often forget that before the Roman Empire, for example, was the Roman Republic, when Rome was building its greatness.

The English-speaking world has all of the above characteristics of equality of opportunity, openness and freedom. One can talk of the differences between and among the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Inevitably, some politician is trying something different. The bottom line, however, is that we have built a world that people are trying to surge into.

The movie brings out, subtlely, the fact that the Islamic world is just the opposite. It is wrapped in medieval fear, hatred and blood feud. Sometimes the operative rhetoric changes; for a moment in time they are "Ba'ath socialists", "pan-Arabs" or "Islamists". The common denominator remains the same; fear, hatred and xenophobia.

The movie showed that Western politicians are failing us by not making us and, more importantly, our children proud of just how different and better we are. Sorry, all is not relative.

One wakes up to the lack of relativity when one sees the initial panic and utter sadness of people about to die, and leave their children parentless, for absolutely no good reason. The scene of redemption is, of course, the chaotic struggle on United 93 that turns the plane from a deadly weapon of medieval fear into a symbol of fighting back, as the Anglosphere has, and hopefully always will, do proudly.

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