World Trade Center (* * *)

Brooke and I went out on Friday night to see World Trade Center. Both of us were really excited to see it and it was a really good movie. I gave World Trade Center 3 stars because it was a good film, it did turn out to be more average than I expected, but it was still good. It's definitely worth seeing and I do recommend it, but it's probably not what you think it is. Both of us were a little surprised about the small scope of the film, but it is a great story and has really good acting. As always, spoilers are ahead so beware.
As you can guess World Trade Center is about the events of September 11th 2001. Although the movie itself is not a broad story of the entirety of events that happened that day. The movie follows a more specific story about two men, Will Jimeno and John McLoughlin, who become trapped in the buildings when they collapse. Both men were part of the Port Authority Police Department and were there as part of the evacuation effort. The men are trapped beneath the rubble and are rescued by a former Marine, Dave Karnes, who wasn't even supposed to be there. The movie is based on the real life story of Will and John along with their families. I did see an interview with Will Jimeno and he vouches for the fact that the movie is accurate and tells the story correctly. I am sure there is some content that is for dramatic purpose only, but to the viewer it feels accurate and it feels like there has been a lot of effort in the details.
I know a lot of people were worried about this moving coming out for several reasons. First of all, director Oliver Stone has made several controversial films in the past. Of course this film stirred up it's own amount of controversy, but I know people were worried that his political agenda would outshine the film itself. I can tell you that is not the case. The movie is not politically motivated at all, in fact there are many events of that day that are left out of the movie for that specific reason. I think that Oliver Stone did a great job of simply telling the story as it happened to these men and their families. Another concern was that the movie is too soon for a lot of people who were directly impacted by the events of that day. I think it would be hard to find people who weren't impacted at all that day, even way out here in Utah we felt the pain of what happened on that day. Watching the movie did bring back a lot of emotions and feelings that I felt on that day, it really brought back to me what happened. I think it brought those feelings back in a good way, a positive way. The movie is very positive and it ends on a positive note, as you can guess both men survive. If anything it brought back that feeling of American Pride and Unity that I felt in the months and years following that day. I also felt a lot of sadness as I watched the film, but it wasn't as sad as I expected it to be, although there was a lot of sniffling in the audience on Friday night. In an interview with Will Jimeno he was asked if he thought the movie was too soon. He replied that it wasn't too soon because the longer we wait to tell the many stories that come out of that day, the more distorted they will become. If we take anything out of what happened that day, we need to know the truth about what happened. I felt that the movie did a good job of telling the truth of the story and I didn't really feel that the movie was too soon.
There were a lot of great things about the movie, it is an incredible story and it's told accurately. The movie itself is very beautiful, there are a lot of sweeping, poignant images and the cinematography is great. I imagine it was difficult to film a story where most of it takes place buried under tons of rubble, but the movie looked really good. The pacing was a little bit off, I did find myself a little bit bored at times. The story moves around from the men under the rubble to the rescuers and family members outside of ground zero, but I don't think it moved enough. There were too many long scenes where nothing happened other than dialogue. I expect that the pacing of the movie was slow on purpose, to try and create the feeling of being trapped under there and for the solemn tone of the movie. It just didn't work for me, I think it would have been better if it was a little faster paced. The acting was excellent, Nicolas Cage plays John McLoughlin and did a great job. You can see the emotions in his acting, his accent and personality are good as well. Maria Bello played Donna McLoughlin, and she did a good job although I didn't feel like there was anything special there. In particular she did a good job of acting the part of a tough New York woman who didn't want to cave in front of her children. The best performances come from Michael Pena (Who was also excellent in Crash, go see it) and Maggie Gyllenhaal who play Will and Allison Jimeno. Both of them did a really great job, Michael was excellent at portraying the emotion of the situation and I just felt like he really captured the character. There were so many different aspects of the character that I enjoyed, he was funny and sad, he had some heartfelt moments and some moments of courage, I could just really feel a lot coming from him. Maggie did a great job of expressing the emotions of her character as well. She plays a young mother that is also pregnant with another child. You can really tell what's going on in her mind and in her heart, just from watching her on the screen it really was an excellent performance.
The Bottom Line....
World Trade Center is a really great movie that tells an unbelievable story. There is some beautiful imagery and some excellent acting. It is a little slow at times but can be overlooked. It's not an epic movie that attempts to tell everything that happened that day. It's a very specific story that really tells what it was like to be two specific people on that day. We all know what happened on September 11th anyway, so we don't really need to be told the whole story. There is no political agenda, and at it's core is what is best about this movie, it's a great story about these two police officers. I do recommend seeing this film, I don't think you will be disappointed. It's rated PG-13 for obvious violence and disturbing images as well as a small amount of language. (You would probably swear too if you were trapped under 25 feet of building rubble). The movie is emotional but it really emphasizes the positive side of the events. Go out and see it, then let me know what you think.