World Trade Center

Nicholas Cage
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Michael Pena
Maria Bello
Jay Hernandez
Directed by: Oliver Stone

Plot: True story of Will Jimeno and John McLoughlin, two Port Authority police officers who rushed into the burning World Trade Center on 9/11 to help rescue people, but became trapped themselves when the tower collapsed. A race against time ensued to free them before their air ran out.

Review: How do you make a movie based on one of the greatest American tragedies in history? How do you keep the people and families that suffered because of it from being offended? How do you portray real heroes to a level they deserve? These are the questions that went through my mind and should have gone through anyone who decided to be involved in this project. Could they do it justice, I gritted my teeth and dove in.

World Trade Center is a hard film to watch. Not because it’s bad, but because of its nature and content. The story is true and based on the accounts of people that helped and survived the ordeal. The performances were great and really brought something to bringing these real life heroes to life. The opening scenes are the hardest to watch in my opinion. Seeing and feeling what the people of New York went through was heart breaking. Watching these people’s reactions to the terror was at times hard to get through. All of these things came across very effectively, without being insulting or trying to glorify what occurred. You really feel for the people that went into these buildings to help, because none of them really knew what they were getting into and they didn’t care, they just wanted to help. I really like this movie and the answer to my above questions are as follows: How do you make the movie? You call Oliver Stone. How do you keep people from being offended? You ask them what happened. How do you show the true heroes? You just tell the story the way it happened and the rest will fall into place. All the people that helped on 9/11 were true heroes and deserve more than a movie for what they did, but if nothing else this is a great tribute to their memory.

Film Review Index