3.5/4  A brave film
A powerful, moving and telling recreation of what occurred on September 11th, 2001, mostly in the Air Traffic Control towers and on the doomed title flight. No attempts to sympathize with the hijackers are made, which leaves the answers t... (read full)

2.5/4  Lags frequently
We all know what happened that Tuesday morning now forever known as 9/11, and this movie tries to depict the events of that morning from the viewpoint of those on the ground working on that day.

When I first saw the commercials for thi... (read full)

4/4  United.
What a film. Finest at it best. Of course you wont have "fun" watching it. But you'll not only apreciate as a movie, but also how the director treated the subject. The actors are great too. Miss it only if you can't handle 9/11 at all. Wic... (read full)

3.5/4  United 93 Quick Review
Don't look for a sentimental story here - this is a straight story and very intense, whether the story is on the plane or on the ground. It's not easy to watch, with the memories of 9/11 still fresh, but the film does the subject justice.

3/4  United 93 Quick Review
While lacking in depth, this is still a great movie. It is almost told in a documentary style perspective which makes it even better. We are all shocked again as we see the towers, we are all amazed at what the passengers did on United 93. While I believe better 9/11 movies will come out in this one is the best so far.

5/5 You feel like a fly on the wall
  by Sarah Trachtenberg (Brookline, MA)
This is a film that makes you think you're not watching a film. Its intentionally choppy cinematography and subtle soundtrack really make you feel like a fly on the wall, witnessing these heart-breaking events. When the tragedy happened, I thought (so did other people) that a movie about it wouldn't be made for years. We were wrong! I feel that United 93 is a reverent and extremely well-done film tribute.
The acting is extremely authentic, and I think many of the people involved in the incident played themselves in this film.

5/5 Hands down the best directed movie I've seen in the last 30 years!
  by H. LUI (Glendale, CA USA)
There really isn't anything that I could say about this movie that hasn't already been said. All I wanna say is that director Paul Greengrass is easily one of the finest directors working today and easily knows how to direct action sequences. The 2 Bourne movies he directed are proof positive. No movie I can think of is as riveting as well as moving as this one. Having said that it is a hard film to watch. It may not be the best film but it certainly is one of the best directed films I've ever seen in many years.

I hope they release a blu-ray edition soon.

5/5 Lest We Forget
  by James Koenig (Minnesota)
United 93 presents in chronological order the horrific sequence of events that occurred on 9-11-01, which resulted in the World Trade Center Twin Towers collapse, the Pentagon strike, and the crash of United 93 in a farmfield in Pennsylvania.

(United 93 is the airplane that was hijacked by terrorists with the purpose of crashing it into the Capitol building (or the White House)).

The movie is very well done, presented in a factual manner with little Hollywood hyperbole. It takes the viewer from the hotel rooms of the terrorists (praying to Allah for success), to the air-traffic controllers who tried to make sense out of the events as they occurred in real time, to the boarding of the passengers of United 93, the hijacking, and the heroic, yet failed attempt to regain control of the plane by a group of United passengers. One can viscerallty sense the profound confusion and indecision of the air-traffic controllers and the passengers that fateful day. What was going on? How to respond to it? The communications between the air-traffic controllers, the military, and the President is shown to be confused and incomplete. Can United 93 be shot down by militry jets to prevent another major catastrophe? Our unpreparedness for this type of attack is clearly evident.

While air-traffic controllers struggle to determine what to do, we also view the evolving condition on the airplane. Step by step, as more information is obtained by passengers on furtive cell-phone calls to family members, they come to the stark realization that their plane is doomed, and that they must do something to prevent another disasterous crash.

As the plane speeds headlong into its final moments, with the passengers fighting for control of the cockpit, we see the ground rapidly looming up in the windows of the plane, exactly as the passengers must have seen. It is gripping and horrible. It feels like we are in the plane with the passengers: the fighting, the confusion, the screams, the plane lurching to and fro, the abject terror of the moment. Then all goes dark.

This production seems more like a documentary than a movie production. For instance, the names of the 37 passengers are not given, nor is there any significant character development. The viewer gets the sense that these 37 random people boarded the plane, knowing nothing about each other, and were forced to quickly 'unite", communicate, and then react to the developing situation. Despite the sparce characterizations, there is still considerable emotional impact, as the humanity of the passengers and crew is shown as they make calls to their loved ones to say a final "goodbye".

There is historical debate whether the passengers actually entered into the cockpit. However, there is no doubt that their actions in trying to retake the plane resulted in the crash, and saved Washington from a direct hit on a symbol of American government (the Capitol building).[...]

We are nearly 8 years removed from 9-11-01, when Bin Laden boldly proclaimed war on the USA. Although we are fortunate to not have suffered another homeland terrorist attack, Bin Laden is still at large, and no doubt has plans to strike us again. Watching this movie reminds me that the war of terror continues, and we must be continually vigilant lest we forget the past.

konedog




5/5 The Story of the People
  by Acute Observer (North Jersey Shore)
The film begins with a man praying. "It's time." He and his friends depart to Newark airport. Other travelers arrive at the terminal, including the crew. The passengers are inspected for hidden weapons, none are found. The passengers board the flight to San Francisco. An air traffic controller notices a problem with Flight 11 out of Boston. [Delays cost $2,000 a minute.] The radar suddenly loses track of Flight 11 when it is near Manhattan. The see smoke coming out of the North Tower (about 8:45 AM). "I've got a bad feeling about this." United 175 dropped its transponder. Where is it? It crashes into the South Tower~ Flights are halted in Boston, New York, and Washington. Langley is warned about Flight 11 nearing Washington. When will they engage? The President has to make the call.

On board Flight 93 one of the terrorists makes a bomb in the rest room. They start stabbing the passengers and enter the cockpit to remove the pilots. Air Traffic Controller hear the disturbance and note the change in direction. They have to get the plane before it gets withing 50 or 60 miles from Washington! "Our time has come" says the terrorist who is flying the plane. "Where are those fighter jets?" The flight attendants try to calm the passengers. "The Vice-President can make the call." The news tells of the attack on the Pentagon. All planes are ordered to land, foreign flights are turned back. Some of the passengers decide to fight back since they have nothing to lose. Where can they get weapons? Others make calls on the air phones. Can they come up with a plan?

The passengers attack the hijackers, one goes down. They push a cart against the other terrorist and he goes down. Next the cart is used as a battering ram against the cockpit door so they can attack the last two terrorists. No one can control the airplane so the flight makes an unscheduled landing. It was the only aircraft that failed to reach its target; this saved the Capitol or the White House from attack and destruction. By the time the President authorized shooting down hijacked aircraft it was all over. US airspace was closed, no civilian airliner was in the skies.

This film explains why there should be a memorial to the heroic passengers on Flight 93 - in Washington DC. The credits name the real people and the actors who portrayed them. Some actors were the real people who were involved. Could this hijacking have occurred in earlier times when the pilot was required to be armed and many passengers would also be armed? Should the US government have been more diligent? I wonder how they were able to reconstruct the events in the plane when no one survived? [More people were killed in 1993 Waco by US government actions than by terrorists on Flight 93; was that avoidable?]


1/5 Propaganda Film.
  by Kiyo M.
I watched this movie years ago before I started to listen to "conspiracy theorists" (actually, real architects, physicists, firefighters, witnesses, survivors, ex-military experts, etc) and then did my own research.

If you take facts from a Hollywood movie and an administration that have been caught lying about WMD, scapegoat Bin Laden, the anthrax scare, illegal torturing, etc. -- then you're living in a fantasy world.

Notice how Bush, Cheney, and many of his supporting puppets, like Giuliani, can't keep up with their lies. Their lies are clearly on tape numerous times when they are interviewed. They will simply deny the truth just like people who don't question anything about 9/11.

The fact is, it's not only "conspiracy theorists" wanting the truth just because (according to anti-truthers) "they just crave attention". Many family victims and soldiers fighting in Iraq question 9/11. People that easily accept the government's story cover up are the ones who are going against all the people that died in vain.

What are we fighting for? For our safety? How odd that our country, considered to have the best defense in the world, and a building called the Pentagon, undeniably having one of the top securities/defense itself -- even when the whole nation is on alert and having very similar drills exactly an year before -- is still attacked by a group of "terrorists" said to be terrible pilots (could not even fly a single-engine plane, yet somehow pulled off impossible maneuvers at low altitudes with a 757, after supposedly knocking over poles); a "mastermind in a cave", are able to pull this off -- all on the same day. Yet, some people laugh more at the idea that it was a work of a CIA? Hmm. Many people know the name "Bin Laden" after 2001. It's become a household name. But you'd be surprised how many people, many of whom that just don't question, still don't even know that a third tower, World Trade Center 7, even collapsed (the 9/11 'Omission' Report didn't even want to touch it because it's a major smoking gun); since it was not hit by a plane -- it was controlled demolition (if fire caused Tower 7 to fall at free fall speeds, and that only occurs when there is no resistance, then we might as well have no need for demolition experts - let's just simply use fire!). And if they don't know that much, they probably don't even know it was the headquarters of the CIA (among others, FBI, DoD...)

When you really look at 9/11, there are smoking guns at every corner. Laws of physics being defied. No dead bodies at the scene. There are many questions unanswered, key witnesses mysteriously dying, evidences being hidden -- like many surveillance videos being confiscated showing no Boeing 757 (Why are they giving us only poor surveillance videos that STILL show no plane hitting it, when the highway cameras would clearly show it? It's called cover up. If they're so confident it was a American Airlines, they would release those tapes) -- yet it's more tragic that there are still people out there that don't question at all, and rather support towards shutting out the truth by supporting the government's story; or just simply lost interest all together because of other media distractions, such as more important things like, "Would Paris Hilton be okay in Jail?".

The fact of the matter is, saying it's a "conspiracy" is considered taboo, so people just shut them out right away. Some people just can't handle the truth. They rather live a lie and ponder over more: "Who would win the next American Idol?"

I thought wow, United 93 is a powerful movie, especially the last few minutes. No question. It's a well-made fictional movie. But what this is, in the end, is nothing but propaganda.

We mostly watch movies for entertainment -- to make us feel happy, laugh, and be sad, etc. -- and if you want entertainment to simply make you feel sad or angry, then this movie can be it. However, just keep in mind this is not a documentary, and if you feel anger after the movie, in reality, the people that we should be "mad as hell" at are not the "terrorists" depicted in this movie. We have traitors in our country committing mass murder and getting away with it.

Todd Beamer's "Let's Roll." (by the way, there is no recording of that account) -- it was the perfect heroic image the government needed, just like the Jessica Lynch rescue (it is a fact that the government/media manipulated that story). The "Bin Laden" image for the "terrorists" was also the perfect scapegoat. It is also sick that Todd's wife, Lisa Beamer, is capitalizing on her husband's death and catch phrase.

History repeats itself. Nazi's Enabling Act 1933 and Patriot Act 2001. Reichstag fire and 9/11. Scary, isn't?

Take truth as the authority, instead of authority as the truth.