UNITED 93 FReeper Reviews

self | April 28, 2006 | RobFromGa

[RobFromGa]

Just saw United 93-- I thought it was excellent. It evolves in real-time and its cuts back and forth between the Air Traffic controllers, the Military room, and the plane.

It was somewhat shocking to watch the level of confusion in terms of what was going on, but when you see what information that they were dealing with, it makes sense.

The hijackers to me came across more as fanatical than evil, and they were not turban-wearing obvious characters, they were cleaned up and I ride on planes with people like them on every flight I take.

In the movie, they are carrying out the plans of others and are obsessive in their task. We are not fighting an enemy that is likely to be reasoned with.

There is one character that I'm glad they included- he has a European *maybe French* accent and he makes a number of comments along the lines of "If we do what they say, they'll spare our lives"-- typical appeasement mentality.

Thanks to this group of heroes, many thousands of lives may have been spared and we kept the Islamic nuts from claiming the Capitol or White House as a prize.

I give in 9.5/10!

[RobFromGa]

I want to thank everyone that has participated in this thread over the weekend, I have read and enjoyed almost every one of these posts.

This is a movie that means different things to different people, and in that respect it is like a mirror into ourselves.

For me the most important part was to bring back my memories of September 10 thinking-- I think that too many in this country have drifted too far back in that direction, and this movie could potentially be a wake-up call that is much less painful than the wakeup call of 9-11.

I hope and pray that we defeat and kill this enemy before he kills us and our way of life-- the greatest that the world has yet seen. God Bless all of you for seeing the movie and for your comments.

[Fudd Fan]

Just returned from seeing this movie and I'm still a little shellshocked. I thought I was prepared but the ending was gut-wrenching.

First, I'm glad they didn't cop out and that they showed the second plane actually hitting the south WTC tower in real time.

Usually at a movie theater I sit back in the seat and get as comfortable as I can for the duration. I never did that with United 93... maybe I didn't think I should be comfortable while I watched it. In the theater where we saw it, when the second plane hit the WTC there were a couple of people who gasped very audibly, and another who cursed those who did it. Otherwise the entire theater was quiet from the time the lights dimmed until everyone was gone. I know that because we were the last to leave (hubby always reads ALL the credits).

I realize there was a bit of license for the movie to show the terrorists having the U.S. Capitol as their target, but personally I think there's more than a good chance that they're correct in that theory.

At one point the 2 terrorists flying the plane said "God willing (in sh'Allah) we will hit our target." Well OUR God was NOT willing and He was working through the people on that flight.

Final note-- for anyone who thinks the final slide that said "Dedicated to all who lost their lives on 9/11" is ambiguous enough not to rule out including the terrorists, I didn't see it that way. THEY didn't lose their lives that day, they took thousands of others'. This movie shows how a group of strangers, working together with their distinctively American Spirit, prevented an even worse catastrophe. They still inspire us.

"Let's roll."

One personal note: Hubby used to work at the New York City PBS station where he knew Polly Adams for years. Polly was an on-air announcer at WNET and did occasional acting, usually supporting or bit parts. Apparently she still acts because Polly played one of the stewardesses in "United 93," the one who the terrorists first grabbed and threatened to slit her throat unless she got them into the cockpit. You will see her listed in the credits.

[GulfWar1Vet]

Hopefully there are more people from SF like him...who finally get it

[GulfWar1Vet]

Rob...thank you for the original post...

Hopefully, this thread won't stop?

[DCPatriot]

The first reports on the Pentagon was just "an explosion". If it was clear a plane had gone in...these talking heads would have suggested a terrorist attack on the United States.

Although in hindsight just seeing news of the Pentagon explosion would have been a tipoff.

[RobFromGa]

Hopefully people wil keep posting their reactions but unless people bump the thread occasionally it will fall quickly from sight. Thanks so much for your valuable insight, and thanks for your service to the cause of freedom, GF1V!

[Gordongekko909]

There were occasionally subtitles for the prayers in Arabic. The DVD version will probably have subtitles for those.

[CedarDave]

Libs are still trying to dampen the wave. At the top of boxofficemojo.com is a story "'United 93' Doesn't Match Press Ccoverage".

Grrrrr...

[Dark Skies]

Thx for the tip...I just read the story at mojo.

At first, I thought "Flight 93" would be a bomb no matter what the quality might be (I would see it and so would other die-hards...but I presumed the majority would avoid it).

I think I was wrong big-time...I think Americans (the silent majority) are still royally p!ssed off.

This movie is a major poke in the eye for islam...and islam deserves much worse.

[CedarDave]

Thx for the tip...I just read the story at mojo.

You know the writer's bias when he cannot resist starting a sentence with "Rush Limbaugh and his ilk also gushed over it,..." .

And the headline ('United 93' Doesn't Match Press Coverage) belies the facts in the story:

Universal Pictures' United 93, opened to a solid estimated $11.6 million at 1,795 sites, comparable to Syriana's first wide weekend.

[finnman69]

This is a unique movie, provoking emotional responses and feelings I have never previously experienced watching a movie. The subject matter of United 93 is visceral as it deals with an issue that has become part of our daily lives.

To put my experience in perspective I am a native New York City resident who witnessed the massacre on 9/11 with my own eyes, from right after the first impact to the final collapse of the Twin Towers.

I saw United 93 at a Saturday night 11 pm showing in the same Upper West Side movie complex from where the controversy over the film’s trailer originated. It’s also a theater where I saw V for Vendetta and was sickened by the audience clapping. The theater was almost full which surprised me for a Saturday 11pm showing, but not unheard of. The crowd looked like a typical movie crowd, maybe less thuggish than you might find at an action flick. I saw lots of couples, some singles, and many groups of 3 or more. All races, but predominantly a white crowd of young to middle aged moviegoers.

This was brilliantly and beautifully filmed. I have read many reviews that say it’s filmed like a documentary, but it did not have that feel at all. I suspect it was shot on digital film which gives the film a grainy realistic quality that captures light in an eerie halo like effect. It’s not surreal, but hyper-realistic without looking live.

The timeline is real time, beginning with the hijackers preparing for the flight in their hotel room, through boarding and flight preps. The introductory scenes effectively weave together all the players that will soon dominate the movie. The major players are the passengers, hijackers, aircraft controllers, FAA traffic control, and military air defense.

Tension is piled on from the very beginning. The scenes of the copilot walking the aircraft and something as simple as latching the aircraft door shut each project their own sense of gritty reality and portend the disaster to come. We all know the story, but you want to scream out to the passengers and pilots that something is very very wrong.

The Boeing 767 itself becomes a character as we see all it’s rivets, controls, paint chips and sheer size of the aircraft shot in a level of detail that is rarely done in films with aircraft. It’s real, and it’s a tremendous aircraft.

The incredible but very understandable confusion and the vast number of characters involved in trying to comprehend and get control of the day, dominates the middle chapter of the movie. As the hijacking begin on the other flights the tension ratchets up immediately. First, from disbelief that there could be a hijacking, the first in 40 years according to controllers. The controller who hears Mohammed Atta’s voice is sure right away something is very, very wrong.

Attacking the WTC is accomplished using mainly stock CNN footage, but there is a very effective shot of the 2nd WTC impact from the vantage point of the Newark Airport control tower. Shock and the understanding of the meaning of a second impact is universal on everyone.

The actual hijacking scene is not graphic, but implied. There is blood but its not overly gory, likely what happened on the plane. The hijackers are brutal, calculating, but imperfect. They make mistakes, and those mistakes provide the opportunity for the passengers to retake control of the plane.

Your mind will race with imagination about what is happening on the other hijacked planes.

The casting is superb. The characters are entirely believable with unknown faces playing everyday Americans. Not only are the actors able to portray the grief of the passengers convincingly, they are physically appropriate. Jeremy Glick (I think) clenching his hand into a muscular claw almost gasping, “I’m going to break his arm” , as he describes how he wants to disarm one of the terrorists, struck me as an incredible moment in the film. The terrorists are physically thin and far less imposing than you might imagine, especially the ‘muscle’ hijackers. One hijacker is a short thin young man who appears to be in college.

I find it interesting that the control of the airplane was held for as long as it did by these two hijackers. If the flight had taken off on time or the hijackers had struck earlier, the plane may have hit the Capitol Building. Once the passengers decided not to be sheep, and try to save themselves and those on the ground, the terrorists themselves become terrorized. And it’s a good thing.

The last portion of the scene moves very quickly. From the time passengers hear from their families that the WTC has been attacked, and then the Pentagon, it’s clear to them it’s a suicide mission. The rebellion happens swiftly, and brazenly. There is one ‘we can negotiate with them, if we stay quiet we’ll get out of this’ euroweenie. He is eventually attacked by the passengers. The terrorists go within 5 minutes from controlling the plane, to becoming the prey of the passengers. The tension is incredible from both sides. I want to make it clear the terrorists were not shown in a sympathetic manner, but there was no sympathy shown to them by the passengers. The terrorists are in deep sh*t and they know it.

The rebellion is realistically filmed, gritty, terrifying, swift and brutal. I can’t effectively put it into words, you just have to see it.

The camera shakes, quick pans and more shaking. Screams, chanting, warning alarms going off. Shots of control dials showing the aircraft inverted. A scream “ I don’t have it!” Cockpit views of the Earth below dipping, pitching and rolling ever closer. Passenger shots in their seats screaming and clutching their seats as the aircraft dives and shakes.

The final shot, out the window, the ground rushes up, closer and closer until you fly into the grass field of the Pennsylvania field.

Then the screen goes black.

The movie theater is dead silent except for the sound of many women crying and sobbing out loud in the audience. Myself? As soon as the screen goes black I feel something. I am not sure what it was, as I have never felt that before in a movie. It’s not anger, or sadness, but perhaps that the relief from the tension and pressure has come. I put my head in my hands and cannot bear to read the text that follows for the next minute on the screen.

I heard the Fox new movie reviewer describe the intensity as ten times the opening d-Day landing scene in Saving Private Ryan. I don’t know if I agree with that comparison as they are such different movies. I agree that the logarithmic buildup of tension and visceral emotion can be described this way. In fact the physical reaction and feelings I experienced were far more intense and sustained than watching the battle scenes in Saving Private Ryan. Again, United 93 is a unique movie, like nothing I have ever seen before.

This is a tough movie to watch but I am better for watching it. In the days after 9/11 I suffered from nightmares. I fell asleep normally last night, after a stiff drink, but there is something cathartic about this movie. Maybe it’s the first accurate realistic understanding of what happened that day in September. I expect any other 9/11 movies to be garbage when compared to this. This film also makes all of the United 93 TV portrayals already shown look like a kindergarten play.

It will be a crime if this movie does not win Best Picture at the Oscars.

[SauronOfMordor]

Both groups realized that the feces were heading towards the fan, and they were both praying their hearts out to their respective gods for strength. Those hijackers were religious, that much can't be denied. Greengrass did not want the viewers to forget the driving force behind what the hijackers were doing, and he wanted to show where the courage to resist them came from.

I think he was also subtly communicating that, whatever god the Muslims were praying to, it was NOT the same God that the passengers prayed to. The Muslim god was a god of death and butchery

[SauronOfMordor]

Thx CD...I just went to boxofficemojo and it looks like "Flight 93" to going to be quite profitable. It's cost to produce was around $15 million and it will return that plus make a tidy profit. If it tops the $100 mil mark, Hollywood will IMO become a veritable production line of 9/11 films.

The next film I want to see (but ONLY if it stays true to the real story) is the story of Rick Rescorla, who served with valor in the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley (and whose story was chronicled in "We Were Soldiers Once -- and Young". On 9/11, Rick was in charge of security for Morgan Stanley's offices in the WTC:

When Islamic fundamentalists bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, Rick was there. Apparently songs don’t work as well on civilians as they do with us soldiers, and so Rick had some difficulty in getting people’s attention, to stop the panic and get them the hell out of there. And so (or at least so the legend goes), he jumped up onto a desk and bellowed out to the flower of American capitalism and propriety that he would moon them all unless they listened.

Nobody I ever met said Rick could not make a statement. People stopped, that’s for sure, and Rick proceeded to do his job, saving lives by moving people out of the tower. And that’s what he was doing again on September 11. Various employees of Morgan Stanley report his presence across all 20 floors occupied by the company. Just as in combat, he was everywhere—calm, jocular in the face of panic, reassuring in his personal presence. There is no way to exaggerate the number of human lives he saved that day. Not just the Morgan Stanley employees, but every single person on a floor above theirs owes a nod in his direction. Thanks to him, just about every one of the employees of his company made it out of the building, all 20 floors of them. Of their thousands, all but seven got out. Think about that. His legend in the company helped (people remember when somebody on an executive salary threatens to moon the staff), and that was enough to keep those people moving, which allowed others to follow, to leave—and to live.

Rescorla would no more have left that tower before every single person was outside than I would start singing show tunes from Broadway. When he called his wife not long after the first plane hit the other tower, he told her not to worry, he was getting everyone out. Despite the fact that an announcement was made over the building speakers telling everyone to stay put after that first strike, Rescorla apparently said, “Bugger THAT!” and started the evacuation immediately. When it appeared that everyone was out, he went back in, heading up those stairs with the rescue workers. That is where he was last seen. He was inside, being himself, when the tower came down on him.

They killed my hero. But heroes never really die. Rick will live on. So long as my pen has ink, and my voice bellows out to your sons manning the ramparts today, he will live on. Rick was a volunteer in a draftee army. In some ways that made it hard for him. It’s easy today. Today we are all volunteers, and the young men and women I serve with will hear Rick’s story because I will tell them, and they will remember. It is our professional strength: We remember.

The only person I would trust with the project would be Mel Gibson

[kellynch]

As I've said before, I will never forget what happened here in NY on 9/11. It is seared into my brain. I admit to being scared to see the movie, but I knew I had to see it. I saw at the Loews 34th Street, and there were only around 25-30 people there. As loud as the movie itself was during the climactic scenes, the silence when the screen went blank was deafening.

[Dark Skies]

Yep...I remember Rick. And Mel should do it.

[Dark Skies]

The Muslim god was a god of death and butchery...

They have no way of knowing (islam prohibits examination)...but their allah is the "destroyer." Allah is anything but the Creator. Allah is a cheap and angry pretender...allah is the "prince of darkness"...he is the anti -God, allah is hatred personified.

IMHO!

[Dark Skies]

I am watching a special on the Nat Geographic channel on Terrorism and 9/11. It reminds me all over again how islam is institutionalized psychopathology. When embraced fully, islam is the pinnacle of human evil.

The world, non-muslims and muslims alike, must be made aware of this fact. Islam is not godly...it is from the very pit of hell.

[GulfWar1Vet]

How do you bump the thread again?

[RobFromGa]

Just like that!

[RobFromGa]

thanks for your heartlfelt comments, finn