United 93

United 93

A real time account of the events on United Flight 93, one of the planes hijacked on 9/11 that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania when passengers foiled the terrorist plot.

If you have not yet seen this movie – go.

If you have already seen this movie – go again.

United 93 posterIf you are afraid to see this movie, don’t be. It is very respectfully done, very moving, and very palatable. This is not an action movie interpretation, it isn’t presenting any specific viewpoint, yet you do get a sense of all the things that went wrong and just how complacent we were. Just how complacent we are becoming again, BTW.

This isn’t a good movie for children, not because of the subject matter but because of the pacing. There isn’t a lot of overt violence to scare them and bad language is minimal. The movie, however, is presented more or less in real time and so young viewers, with no idea of what is unfolding, will be squirmy. For teens, it is a good movie to see, though their level of interest will be directly proportional, I imagine, to their knowledge of the events of 9/11.

For those of us who remember that day, the violence will be mostly in your memories – not on the screen. He does show us the towers burning, and we hear about the Pentagon being hit, but the focus is really on what is happening on flight 93 and with the military, ATC and FAA workers trying to deal with the unfolding tragedy. I found myself tearing up at times that I wouldn’t have expected – and not tearing up during the scenes you would expect to elicit the most emotion.

Really, truly – no matter where you stand politically, you should see this film.

When I say to GO see this, that is exactly what I mean – in a theater with a crowd of people. The experience is compelling. I have never been in a theater that was so quiet through an entire movie – not even candy wrappers crinkling. When the film ended and the lights came up, you could see in the faces of the other patrons the fear and the sorrow and the pride and the questions…


Rotten Tomatoes: Critics 91%; Users 89%