If you're going to assess the movie AS a movie, you have to try to separate it from the events it purports to describe. The events are far too horrible for us to grasp fully, but the movie is accessible to us, fully formed, financed, edited, and marketed for our enlightenment. I guess that doesn't really make it easy to make judgments about the film, because there is still so much emotional baggage in tow.
If this were entirely fictional, I'd say it was about average for a TV movie, may a bit less.
I expect that men and women will respond differently to it. Most of the footage seems taken up with phone calls between the victims and their families or agents on the ground. This ought to appeal disproportionately to women. Nothing sexist is meant by that. It's just a scientific observation as well as an everyday one. As an example, a few years ago a young woman was driving her car across some railroad tracks and a locomotive smashed into the car. As the monstrous engine pushed the car along the track for a quarter of a mile or so before finally coming to a stop, the woman was frantically working at her cell phone, trying to call her mother.
Men will respond more to the instrumental activities on the ground and aboard the doomed flight. What did they DO? What did they plan to do with the airplane if they succeeded? Did any of them know anything about flying a huge aircraft? I wouldn't argue that the instrumental concerns were more important than the expressive ones in this instance. The passengers and the hijackers were dead the moment the pilot and copilot were killed. If I had a last phone call to make, it might well be to a family member.
Yet the film seems to pander to common sensibilities. Do ALL of the victim's families have to be so pure and middle class? Were all of the loved ones really blond? Why do we see so MANY kids? And why are they thrust in our faces? The first family member to receive an alarming phone call from her husband is simultaneously watching television, trying to cope with three noisy young children, and understand what her husband is trying to tell her. The kids are all cute as buttons but they keep getting underfoot and interrupting her -- "Who's dead, Mommy?" And the movie -- understandably -- must take dramatic license. But in doing so, in fabricating conversations and events aboard the plane, in concentrating on isolated phone calls home, it loses something of real importance -- how did the passengers get to know each other well enough to bond together and combat a common enemy? Nobody seems to discuss their takeover plans with anyone else. It seems to come out of the blue.
The film raises questions about the truth value of some of the things we see on screen too. How did one of the fruitcakes manage to get on board with a simulated bomb strapped around his waist? My impression is that the interceptors were nowhere near the hijacked airplane, so why the agonized speculation about whether they should shoot it down or just ram it? And did anyone really say, "Let's roll"? I know Bruce Willis would have said it, but did anyone in real life? I don't want to carp on this any longer because the attacks are still painfully clear in our memories. But although this movie isn't actually insulting, it needs to show more respect for the victims and for the audience as well. When catastrophes are bent and reshaped into typical movie fare, the events and the victims are both cheapened. Tears are easy. Handle with care.
If this were entirely fictional, I'd say it was about average for a TV movie, may a bit less.
I expect that men and women will respond differently to it. Most of the footage seems taken up with phone calls between the victims and their families or agents on the ground. This ought to appeal disproportionately to women. Nothing sexist is meant by that. It's just a scientific observation as well as an everyday one. As an example, a few years ago a young woman was driving her car across some railroad tracks and a locomotive smashed into the car. As the monstrous engine pushed the car along the track for a quarter of a mile or so before finally coming to a stop, the woman was frantically working at her cell phone, trying to call her mother.
Men will respond more to the instrumental activities on the ground and aboard the doomed flight. What did they DO? What did they plan to do with the airplane if they succeeded? Did any of them know anything about flying a huge aircraft? I wouldn't argue that the instrumental concerns were more important than the expressive ones in this instance. The passengers and the hijackers were dead the moment the pilot and copilot were killed. If I had a last phone call to make, it might well be to a family member.
Yet the film seems to pander to common sensibilities. Do ALL of the victim's families have to be so pure and middle class? Were all of the loved ones really blond? Why do we see so MANY kids? And why are they thrust in our faces? The first family member to receive an alarming phone call from her husband is simultaneously watching television, trying to cope with three noisy young children, and understand what her husband is trying to tell her. The kids are all cute as buttons but they keep getting underfoot and interrupting her -- "Who's dead, Mommy?" And the movie -- understandably -- must take dramatic license. But in doing so, in fabricating conversations and events aboard the plane, in concentrating on isolated phone calls home, it loses something of real importance -- how did the passengers get to know each other well enough to bond together and combat a common enemy? Nobody seems to discuss their takeover plans with anyone else. It seems to come out of the blue.
The film raises questions about the truth value of some of the things we see on screen too. How did one of the fruitcakes manage to get on board with a simulated bomb strapped around his waist? My impression is that the interceptors were nowhere near the hijacked airplane, so why the agonized speculation about whether they should shoot it down or just ram it? And did anyone really say, "Let's roll"? I know Bruce Willis would have said it, but did anyone in real life? I don't want to carp on this any longer because the attacks are still painfully clear in our memories. But although this movie isn't actually insulting, it needs to show more respect for the victims and for the audience as well. When catastrophes are bent and reshaped into typical movie fare, the events and the victims are both cheapened. Tears are easy. Handle with care.