UNITED 93 - TRIBECA

2006 TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL

UNITED 93

  There's been much debate over UNITED 93, the film selected
to open the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. I suppose in some manner
it is quite appropriate since the Festival arose as a means to aid
business in the hard-hit area around the site of what has come to be
known as "Ground Zero."

  Several years ago, director Paul Greengrass managed to make
BLOODY SUNDAY, a coherent and instructive recreation of a 1972
Irish civil rights demonstration in Belfast that ended in bloodshed when
British troops opened fire. Shot like a documentary, the film took a very
complex event and distilled it into striking cinema. Greengrass has worked
his magic again in tackling the events of September 11, 2001.

  UNITED 93 begins with an Islamic prayer and the audience sees
the four hijackers on the eve of the hijacking. The next morning, crew
members and passengers go about the mundane tasks before boarding
the doomed flight. For verisimilitude, the director hired a number of
real flight personnel to portray characters (for example, pilot JJ Johnson
portrays Captain Jason Dahl, flight attendant Trish Gates plays flight
attendant Sandra Bradshaw). In addition, the director secured the
cooperation of the families of all the passengers. Perhaps that's why
the film doesn't feel exploitative or overly sentimental.

  While the actors playing the passengers are mostly drawn from
the theater world (Chip Zien, Peter Herrmann, Cheyenne Jackson,
John Rothman, Denny Dillon) so they are probably not as familiar
to audiences as more well-known names and it reinforces the fact
that the individuals on that flight were more or less ordinary citizens
who faced with an untenable situation undertook heroic actions.

  UNITED 93 is an important reminder of a group of men and
women whose lives were snuffed in one of the most heinous acts
of the early 21st Century. As such, it demands to be seen.


                          Rating:                A-