World Trade Center - The Tallguy Review

As mentioned yesterday, we saw World Trade Center this weekend. The short story - 4 1/2 out of five. Go see it.

The long story. Well...

(This may threaten to ramble into Harry Knowles territory. I promise not to mention anything I ate or how it was disposed of.)

I realized something that didn't quite occur to me, even when I saw United 93. To some of you that know me, it's probably painfully obvious. There's a big part of me that still lives in that day. Certainly that week. Anyone that has talked to me even passingly knows that I woke up that morning because my father called to tell me the towers were gone and the Pentagon had been hit. And I didn't believe him. By the time I knew anything was happening it was all over. I always divide up time by "Did it happen before or after September 2001?"

To branch even further off the subject, we watched The Dish the other day. The Dish is about the radio telescope in Parkes, Austrailia that was used to receive the television signals from the first moon landing. High tech space exploration comes to small farm town Australia. Warm hearted hilarity ensues. What has this got to do with World Trade Center? Well, both films take the opportunity to show "what happened that day". Not at Houston. Not on the moon. Not in Manhattan. Not on Air Force One. They show people huddled around their TV sets. They show people thousands of miles away Getting The News. They show where YOU were on those days.

50 years from now our children and our grandchildren (and so on) will know the burning towers the way I knew Hiroshima, or Kennedy's motorcade or, well, Armstrong standing on the moon. But I don't know if they'll get how still the world was. How empty the streets were. How empty the skies were. How full the churches were. Stone gives us a pretty good look at some of this (except that last one - more in a moment). Nobody comments on it, it's just there. If you didn't live through it, you might not notice it. But if you did it makes you nod in remembrance.

An interesting device that Stone uses to bring you back to 2001 is that almost all of the news coverage is from Peter Jennings. And there's a lot of news coverage. I've heard the accusation that the movie never tells you how this happened. That it's a pretty generic disaster movie, not the result of an intentional attack. I'd say those people aren't paying attention. You get the same news in the movie that we did on that day. And the people in the movie have the same reactions we did. They know what happened as quickly (or slowly) as we did. Both President Bush and Rudy Giuliani are shown, and neither one with an eye roll. As the gent in the bar in Wisconsin watches towers burn on the TV and is told who did it he grumbles "Bastards!" What more do you need? Also, while the only trace you see of the airliners is the shadow of a jet passing over the buildings, the movie is not shy about showing the destruction up close and personal. I think I saw more of the towers on fire in this movie than I did in real life.

I don't think anyone expected Oliver Stone to make this movie. He plays it very very straight. You keep waiting for a wry wink at the audience, some ironic nod "Well, people think these were knights in shining armor, but they weren't." Because it's such a bug's eye view of the event he doesn't feel the need to show anymore than the people struggling through the day. I mentioned the churches. The one church we see is pretty much empty. But it's early in the day, and there is a narrative reason for it - to show off one character. But I can't complain too much. Almost every character in the film has a very strong faith. Heck, most of them are Catholic. And it's never laughed at (ok, other than the Crazy Marine, but he's a Crazy Marine). It's always played sincere. I think some of the audience we saw it with (yes, I have another Stupid Audience story) was almost uncomfortable with the fact that a dying man sees Jesus, in full old-school Catholic imagery, and it's not supposed to be stupid.

That may be my only complaint about the movie - It's almost too heroic. These characters came out of comic books and war movies. It's not somber (and there are actually some really good laughs). But the Port Authority in particular are beyond belief. But that was how the world was. We couldn't believe it then, either.

A comparison between Katrina and 9/11: Katrina was how the world always told us people would act. 9/11 was how people acted in the movies.

Nicholas Cage is terrific. The whole cast is. But Cage in particular manages to be so salt-of-the-earth. He's everything a big movie star isn't. Personally I think it's the moustache.

I didn't tell you much of the meat of the movie, because, well, you just have to see it. There are surprises in a movie were you think you know all of it. That's not the point, it's not the Roller Coaster Thriller of the Summer. But I figured I'd save that for you.

I will be interested what this movie looks like 50 years from now. When people no longer have a catch in their breath just seeing the skyline with the towers still standing. Just the title card "September 11th, 2001" has an effect. You never know more than the characters. (He never tells you that the second tower is collapsing. The characters don't know and never really find out.) I'm always curious how much people will get, how much they're supposed to know.

Bringing us to our Stupid Audience Story of the day. Why do people see a movie about a real-life event and feel the need to fill in all of the gaps with the person sitting next to them? Same thing happened at United 93. People around us TALKING about what's going on in the movie. "Ohhhh, see that was before they knew there was a second plane." "Well I heard that these guys were never told" blah blah blah BLAH BLAH! SHUT UP! Talk about it over coffee when the movie is over! So at the start of the movie when the people behind us start having a lively conversation I give my First Warning "Shhhhhh!". The usual surprised silence, that lasts about a second. Finally I turn around and say "Would you please talk about it AFTER the movie?" I am told firmly "Simmer down, buddy." Um, WHAT? I didn't shout, growl, swear, or even really raise my voice. At which point My Sweety, My Darling, My Reason For Living, She Who Is My Wife just about jumps at the guy and say "It isn't your living room, BUDDY." We did have peace after that, but I grumbled for a long time. (I was kind of hoping to get someone removed from the theater. It's been a while.) Grrrrr. Stupid people. It's tough to watch a movie about The Day We All Came Together and want to strangle everyone else in the audience.

ANYWAY - like I said: 4 1/2 out of five. Go see it.