United 93

This is amazing to me. The much needed break from what could be the most overwhelming gush of blind patriotism and armchair political opinion in all of time just happens to be a Hollywood action thriller about the event that spurned it all. Paul Greengrass's film, contrary to my initial fears about the project, included none of the sickening "victimismo" that the event has instilled in our poor nation. It relied on none of the spectacle of leftist protest that has loosened countless indie investors' wallets in recent years. It mentioned El Presidente two or three times briefly, with only a passing reference to "where he was" at the moment of crisis, as Michael Moore has already so eloquently pointed out. This film even diplomatically avoids driving into our heads a memoriam of names, families, affectees, etc., although (despite my clever quip before watching it) many of the roles were played by actual participants in the event.

All this is vastly impressive, and I believe Greengrass knows that a political film about 9/11 would be the wrong war at the wrong time. So instead, he's created an even more impressive work, to the delight of us all. An action thriller! The notion of restraint was the guiding principle in avoiding the pitfalls of a film of this theme. Likewise, restraint has done its job in guiding Greengrass through the genre. There's no gratuitous special effects that usually mar any kind of intellectual accessibility. There's no "star power." The tension is spine-tingling, and the buildup to the predetermined finale is celebrated, rather than shamelessly hinted at, because don't we always know the ending of these things anyway? This film is an excellent psychological thrill-ride, and isn't it a shame that it took the deaths of over 3,000 New Yorkers to finally get this premise right? Maybe something can be done about the SpiderMan franchise.